THE BASICS
WHO: J. Cole and The Knocks
WHAT: Dooley’s Frolics (J. Cole) and Dooley’s Ball (The Knocks)
WHEN: 7 PM Friday, March 27th – J. Cole for Dooley’s Frolics
8 PM Saturday, March 28th – The Knocks for Dooley’s Ball
WHERE: McDonough Field (for both nights)
At this week’s past Wonderful Wednesday, SPC officially announced that rapper, J. Cole, would be headlining at the first concert for Emory’s annual Homecoming Dooley’s Week for 2015. The following day, SPC announced that the electronic music duo, The Knocks, would be the performers for the following night. Emory is so excited to have these artists on our stage!
J. COLE
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J. Cole is incredibly accomplished as a Hip Hop artist. Cole – real name Jermaine Lamarr Cole – is a rapper, songwriter, and record producer from North Carolina. As for his career as an artist thus far, he emerged onto the scene around 2007. After having three mixtapes, The Come Up, The Warm Up, and Friday Night Lights, Cole has released three albums, Cole World: The Sideline Story, Born Sinner, and 2014 Forest Hills Drive (all in order of release). Here’s his track record for artists he’s worked with through his career:
J. Cole Supporting Other Artist’s Works
- The first artist signed onto Jay Z’s record label, Roc Nation
- Supporting act for Drake’s 2011 UK Tour, Light Dreams and Nightmares
- Produced Kendrick Lamar’s promotional lead single on his album, Section.80, “HiiiPoWeR”
- Featured on Beyoncé’s track, “Party”
J. Cole With Other Artists for His Own Work
- TLC to sing the chorus of his song, “Crooked Smile”
- Kendrick Lamar, again, to rap a verse on “Forbidden Fruit”
- Worked with 50 Cent and Bas on track, “New York Times”
- Trey Songz was featured on “Can’t Get Enough”
- His song, “Nobody’s Perfect”, brought back female Hip Hop artist, Missy Elliot, back to the world of current Hip Hop music
- Drake, on his song, “In The Morning”
- Featured Miguel on his song, “Power Trip”
… along with many others that weren’t mentioned!
How’s that for an impressive résumé?
Get to Know J. Cole
J. Cole has a wide range of sounds, so it’s hard to reflect what he’s about in a single song. To get a first taste of J. Cole’s sound, here are two of my personal favorites:
- Wet Dreamz – Fresh off of his latest album this year, 2014 Forest Hills Drive, Cole tells the awkward, honest, thoughtful, and humbling story of losing his virginity.
- Crooked Smile (Feat. TLC) – Part of his second record album, Born Sinner, Crooked Smile brings back TLC, who hadn’t been in the music scene for almost a decade up to this song’s release. The song is special for the fact that it samples Jennifer Hudson’s track, “No One Gonna Love You,” the appearance of TLC’s vocals, but most of all, for it’s message of emphasizing inner beauty over looks and owning your flaws.
THE KNOCKS
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Ben “B-Roc” Ruttner and James “JPatt” Patterson are the two that make up the electronic group, The Knocks. The two are based out of Manhattan, where they met at New York’s City’s non-traditional university, the New School, where they started their first mini recording studio out of their shared apartment. Their own songs along with their remixes are really popular amongst DJ’s and they frequently DJ the after parties of major night events. I think the most unique thing about the group is their sort of positive vibe, old school, and funky sound.
Get to Know The Knocks
Their songs reliably put me in a great, happy-go-lucky mood. Here are some tracks that I’ve known for a while that I can’t wait to hear live:
- The Feeling – This song will be extremely fun to dance to, so I hope they perform this one and everyone should be looking forward to it.
- Modern Hearts (Feat. St. Lucia) – Modern Hearts is a trendy, fashionable, chic, futuristic song. Whenever I hear this song, I picture models walking down a runway at major fashion show to these beats. On this single, The Knocks feature St. Lucia, another indie electronic artist, based out of Brooklyn, New York. If you don’t know him, you definitely should!
- Classic (Feat. Powers) – The fun, summery, perky song is one of their most recent, having been released this past Fall 2014. This is your ideal ‘pool party’ sort of song, which is apparent in its music video. You will undoubtedly be hearing this one on Saturday!
Get pumped for Dooley’s Week! It’s so much sooner than you think!