8 Things You Didn’t Know About J. Cole’s ‘2014 Forest Hills Drive’

“Wet Dreamz” was written while Cole was still in college

In the first episode of his Inevitable audio series with manager Ibrahim Hamad and music video director Scott Lazer, Cole revealed that he wrote “Wet Dreamz” while he was making his first mixtape, The Come Up, between his sophomore and junior years of college at St. Johns University.

“[‘School Daze’] and ‘Wet Dreamz’ were two songs where I knew ahead of time, where I was like ‘Ah!’ And I think they both came from the same place, because I was like, ‘Yo, what’s relatable?’ I think that was my thing…I wrote ‘Wet Dreamz’ to a [J] Dilla instrumental, but I had the concept for it and ended up doing the beat for it like the next year. Same era though, and from the same intention of [thinking], ‘What does everyone go through?’ in my mind, and how can I paint that scenario.”

The song wouldn’t be released until nearly a decade later. But it makes much more sense now why its tone and subject matter could be looked at as a little childish; Cole was deadass a college kid when he wrote it.

2014 Forest Hills Drive was originally going to be a double album

In the 2014 interview with NPR, Cole revealed that he originally planned to make 2014 Forest Hills Drive a double-album, but ultimately decided against it. “People don't understand the decisions that go into making the album,” Cole said. “You know what I mean? Like, the scenes I had to cut to make this album. At one point this was a double album, and making those cuts was sooooo hard. And certain decisions like that are so hard to do.”

This added context makes more sense now, as Dreamville dropped a vinyl and special edition CD of 2014 Forest Hills Drive for the 10-year anniversary with an alternate cover that would have been used if the album had remained a double disc. There are also eight new songs on the CD version that were not included on the original release, which Cole clarified on social media were the tracks that would have been included in the double album version.

Yasiin Bey and Future were almost featured on the album

For the five-year anniversary of the album, Hamad shared some information about the project, including the fact that Future and Yasiin Bey, formerly known as Mos Def, were almost featured on the notoriously feature-less Forest Hills Drive. “Bumping FHD all day, one of the best album of the decade in any genre,” Ib posted on X. “And to think, we were tryna get Mos Def to do the 03 Adolescence hook and Future to do the end of No role modelz but it never worked out... would of ruined all the platinum with no features jokes.” I could definitely imagine Future crooning “she shallow with the pussy” at the end of “No Role Modelz,” but it wouldn’t be worth coming at the cost of going platinum with no features.

It was also reported that Bone Thugs-N-Harmony members Krayzie Bone and Bizzy Bone recorded tracks with Cole that didn’t end up making the album. “Krayzie’s gonna be on J. Cole’s new album. J. Cole didn’t even know Bone’s story, how they took a Greyhound to meet Eazy-E, who signed them to his Ruthless Records imprint,” Bone Thugs’ manager Steve Lobel said. “The record’s fucking crazy. Crazy. Bizzy [Bone] got on it, too.”

The album tells the story of Cole’s life in chronological order

When talking to NPR in 2014, Cole shared that the album is sequenced in chronological order, starting with the intro that questions what he wants from life, then going into “January 28th,” his birthday, followed by “Wet Dreamz,” which talks about adolescent love and so on.

“It goes chronologically and follow my life progressions of this kid that wants so bad to be a movie star and so bad to be famous and to have things. And you could follow the beginning of the album and all these things that he wants. On ‘January 28th’—after I'm asking, ‘Do you want to be happy? Do you want to be free?’On ‘January 28th,’ the first words in the beginning is: ‘Can I make a million dollars off a rap tune?’ That's the first question I ask on ‘January 28th" before getting into it.”

There were 100 different options for the cover art

The album’s cover, featuring Cole sitting atop the roof of his childhood home, would go on to become synonymous with the rapper. However, Dreamville’s VP of Creative Services and the person who shot the cover, Felton Brown, revealed that they went through roughly 100 variant shots before landing on the now-iconic image.

“There’s, like, a hundred other photos of just cool shots of [Cole] just exploring his hometown,” Felton tells Complex. “Even cool things like him sitting with his family members and people that were close to him. But in terms of the solo shots, between the Dicks [Drive-In] shot and [the cover], I think the one that we put out was the stronger one. But I also think the second one is dope because it’s just another way to flip it.”

The photo in front of Dicks Drive-In the Felton is referring to was the alternate cover that they ended up using for the 10-year anniversary vinyl and CD exclusive versions of the album that recently went on sale. Many of the shots that were not used for the cover art ended up being included in the booklet that came with the original album drop back in 2014. He also revealed that the brush of trees in the background of the cover had to be filled in with Photoshop to make the image look more full, rather than it just being a blue sky behind him.

2014 Forest Hills Drive could have been his last album

In Complex’s 2015 cover story, Cole explained how he wouldn’t have been upset if 2014 Forest Hills Drive was the last album he released. “I don’t know. I love doing it, so I’m not going to use that as [a sales pitch], like, ‘Last album—make sure you go out and buy,’” Cole said at the time. “But I’m content if this is my last one, going out like this.”

Cole felt this way because he believed FHD completed a narrative arc that he started with his first successful mixtape, The Warm Up, where he talked about wanting to become a famous rapper, to then figuring out how to make massive records on Sideline Story, and then discussing being disappointed with the route he took with trying to appease the rap industry machine and hunting for radio hits in Born Sinner. “That would be the illest note to leave listeners with,” Cole said when thinking about leaving fans with Forest Hills Drive as the conclusion to his story.

The album almost had to come out in 2015

In the album’s outro, “Note to Self,” Cole makes a joke about how listeners might be hearing the track in 2015. That wasn’t too far from the truth. The album narrowly met its December 9 deadline and almost had to be released the following year. Cole was adamant about dropping it in 2014 because the year would line up with the address of his childhood home in Fayetteville, North Carolina where the project is named after.

What was holding up its release was sample clearances, specifically one for the intro “January 28th.” On the track, Cole samples the Japanese song “Sky Restaurant.” The group, Hi-Fi Set, cleared the sample at the very last minute. Ib added more context to this story on X, as well, saying, “January 28th was a sample from a Japanese artist we couldn’t get in touch with at all for month and the sample clearance came from Japan at 2 am when our final deadline to turn the album in was 9 am that morning. I almost shed a real thug tear in that moment when we found out.”

Cole was embarrassed about the “platinum with no features” meme that came after

2014 Forest Hills Drive notably went platinum without any features, which became a talking point in large part thanks to Cole’s fiercely loyal fanbase, who felt like the project deserved to be receiving more accolades and praise. That accomplishment became a badge of honor to many of these fans as well. However, Cole himself didn’t hold as much pride in the feat as time went on because it eventually became a meme on Twitter. In his 2019 interview with GQ, Cole explained how he started to get embarrassed when people used to continuously bring up that he went “platinum with no features.”

“I was loving it,” he says. “I was like, ‘Word up—this is funny as hell.’ But the second or third time, I was like, ‘All right, it's almost embarrassing now.’ Like, ‘All right, man, y'all gonna make me put a feature on the album just so this shit can stop.’ ”