j. cole addresses mental health, addictions, and childhood trauma in new album kod

By Jasmin Pierre/A Fight Worth Finishing*, AFROPUNK Contributor

On 4/20, J. Cole dropped a new album called KOD. Being that I’m a mental health advocate, learning what this album was going to be about, I spent time listening to and dissecting the album piece by piece for almost three hours. The day before the actual release, Cole Dropped a trailer explaining three different meanings of what KOD stands for:
1. “Kids On Drugs”
Cole states we see many commercials addressing mental health issues, but the first response to any problem is to medicate.
2. King Overdose
In this description Cole addresses Addictions such as Alcohol, Drugs, phone addictions, addictions to women, etc.
3. Kill Our Demons

Here Cole addresses that we have to first realize we have stuff going on in order to face our problems head on (and that we’re not alone in it; all of us are fighting through something). May it be childhood trauma, confidence issues, insecurities, finding the root of the issue is key to face it head on.
In my opinion this by far is one of the most relevant albums J. Cole has dropped. KOD is very insightful, thought-provoking, and brings awareness to serious issues that are mentally and physically killing so many people.
The album literally breaks down how childhood trauma, mental health issues, and the opioid epidemic of lean, Xanax, Percocet, etc. are really affecting our culture.

Some really powerful take away messages are throughout the entire album. Here are six take aways that touched me the most.

1. The mentioning of how social media has really messed with people’s minds. Many people choose social media over real genuine human connection nowdays, and it’s actually destroying some people mentally.

2. The mentioning of how all of these drugs are being used to try and kill our pain. Many are searching for a release from all the demons we are fighting but Cole mentions ever so powerfully “The strongest drug of them all is LOVE”. It’s crazy because I was just having a conversation about this with someone the other day. I find real truth in the thought process of it. We all want to be loved. We all want someone in our corner to let us know we’re not alone fighting these demons.

3. In “Once An Addict” Cole mentions his own mothers struggle with addiction and depression and how it affected him. However, he took it a step further and took a look at himself asking “what more could I have done to help around that time instead of running away?”.

Many family members don’t know how to help a loved one going through mental illness and addiction. It can be tough. Especially when many still know so little information about it. Even Cole mentions he didn’t understand at times why his mom was going through it so badly.

4. Addressing smiling while slowly dying inside. This was so powerful to talk about because so many of us do this. I can’t even count the numbers of times I smiled while depression was slowly and deeply drowning me inside.
In the song “Motiv8” Cole talks about how pride can get in the way of facing our issues “Too many times I swallow my pride, I’m cracking a smile, I’m dying inside, my demons are close, I’m trying to hide, I’m popping a pill, I’m feeling alive”.

5. Cole actually talks about a man in the song “Kevin’s Heart” (which…actually may be a reference to THE Kevin Hart’s infidelity??? Hey I’m just saying it’s one hell of a coincidence.) who can’t be faithful to a woman that he KNOWS is the one for him. He knows he’s no good to her and it’s eating him alive.
He can’t stop lying and giving in to temptations. “Love her don’t want to lose her, I’m selfish I know I use her”. I think it was important to address this issue as well because a lot of men use sex with a bunch of women as an escape to not face their own inner demons and they don’t even realize it. (Yes, we know women can do it too.)

6. This was the take away that actually brought me to tears. In the song called “Friends” Cole actually addresses the stigma of mental illness in the black community.
“There’s all sorts of trauma from drama that children see… Type of shit that normally would call for therapy… But you know just how it go in our community, Keep that shit inside it don’t matter how hard it be”.
This statement brought me to tears for two reasons. The first being this statement is so very true and sad. We are still taught to hold everything inside in the black community “don’t go telling people your business” is normal to hear. I’m so proud Cole addresses this because of his large platform of black followers. It may actually help to wake more of the black community up.
The second reason I was brought to tears was because J. Coles music has literally helped me through some of the darkest days of my depression. I listened to him so much after I attempted suicide back in 2014 and it got me through some rough patches. To actually know this and to now hear this album that addresses so many things that I’ve felt and have dealt with? It just made me love his music so much more.

-Jasmin

Jasmin Pierre is a Certified Peer Support Specialist, Certified Mental Health First Aid Responder, Mental Health Advocate, Motivational Speaker, Author of the self help book “A Fight Worth Finishing”, and creator of the minority mental health app “The Safe Place“, Jasmin is constantly fighting for the rights of those who battle Mental Health Challenges.

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