Born on a military base in Germany and raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina,[4] Cole initially gained attention as a rapper following the release of his debut mixtape, The Come Up, in early 2007.

Intent on further pursuing a musical career, he signed with Jay-Z's Roc Nation in 2009 and released two additional mixtapes: The Warm Up (2009) and Friday Night Lights (2010) to further critical acclaim as he garnered a wider following.

[5] Despite commercial success, Cole departed from the pop-oriented sound of the albums in favor of conscious subject matter for his subsequent projects; themes of nostalgia, racial inequality, and materialism were explored respectively in his following releases: 2014 Forest Hills Drive (2014), 4 Your Eyez Only (2016) and KOD (2018).

4 Your Eyez Only yielded his furthest commercial success—selling an estimated 500,000 album-equivalent units in its first week,[6] while the latter featured a then-record six simultaneous top 20 hits on the Billboard Hot 100—the first time a musical act achieved this feat since English rock band the Beatles in 1964.

[7][8][9] His sixth album, The Off-Season (2021), was met with continued success and spawned the single "My Life" (with 21 Savage and Morray), which peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100.

Self-taught on piano, Cole also acts as a producer alongside his recording career—having largely handled the production of his own projects—with credits on material for other artists, including Kendrick Lamar, Janet Jackson, Young Thug, Wale, and Mac Miller, among others.

[37] Cole later expanded his production to create an entire CD's worth of instrumentals, and traveled to Roc the Mic Studio, hoping to play it for Jay Z while he was in recording sessions for American Gangster.

[40] In January 2010, Cole, along with label mate Jay Electronica and Mos Def appeared on Talib Kweli and Hi-Tek's single, "Just Begun" for the follow-up of Reflection Eternal's album Train of Thought (2000), titled Revolutions Per Minute (2010).

[63] On October 24, 2011, during an interview with Hot 106's Rise & Grind morning show, Cole revealed he had begun working on his second studio album, with hopes of releasing it in June 2012.

To celebrate his return, he released the song "Visionz of Home", and launched an event titled "Dreamville Weekend" to inspire the youth of his hometown to achieve great things.

The series included five episodes as well as featuring guest appearances from Kendrick Lamar, Wale, Rihanna, Pusha T, Big Sean, Jay Z, and Drake.

[124] In the United States, on the day of its release, KOD broke the previous record for Views by Drake in 2016 by receiving 64.5 million streams on Apple Music.

[141] In an interview for Billboard in September 2018, Cole said he plans to take off 2019 from touring to finish work on The Off Season, The Fall Off, and the Kill Edward project.

[144] A total of 343 artists and producers were invited to the sessions including, Big K.R.I.T., Mike Will Made It, DJ Khaled, Swizz Beatz, Tay Keith, T.I, Rick Ross, 9th Wonder and Wale, among others.

On July 2, 2019, Dreamville Presents: REVENGE was released on the label's official YouTube account, a film documenting the album's recording sessions in Atlanta.

[157][158][159] On July 23, 2020, Cole released a promotional EP titled Lewis Street featuring two new songs, "The Climb Back" and "Lion King on Ice".

It received positive reviews from critics and topped the US Billboard 200, selling 282,000 album-equivalent units in its first week, earning Cole his sixth consecutive number-one album in the country.

[169] On October 6, 2023, Drake's album For All The Dogs was released; on it, J. Cole was featured on the eventual single "First Person Shooter", which would debut at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming his first song to top the chart.

"[178] On July 20, 2020, Cole released an article for The Players' Tribune, writing about his goals after graduating college to eventually playing professional basketball saying "if I can blow up in the next three years, that means I'll only be 27.

Cole said in a press release, "NBA 2K has long been a place to discover new musical talent through their game and continues to be a gold standard for showcasing all things basketball culture.

[188] On June 8, 2022, in a social media interview released by the Shooting Stars, it was announced that Cole would take an indefinite leave from the team to fulfill his concert tour commitments.

[194] In 2014, in an interview with Angie Martinez, Cole listed Tupac, The Notorious B.I.G., Nas and Jay-Z as his top four rappers of all time, with André 3000 and Eminem being a toss-up for fifth.

[196] Ibrahim Hamad, a close friend of Cole's and president of Dreamville Records took to Twitter to address the rumors saying: "The Internet is a crazy place you niggaz reporting shit with no facts, Cole ain't get thrown out no party and he damn sure aint get beat up", he continued saying, "Ain't gon go into details about last night but get the facts right first before you rush to report some shit for some extra blog clicks".

"[198] Lil Uzi Vert acknowledged the track, responding via Twitter on December 2, 2016, by simply tweeting, "Heard some beautiful shit today @JColeNC".

[204] Media outlets and rappers speculated that the song "1985" from KOD was a response to the two, while Cole said in a Vulture interview that "It's really a 'shoe fits' situation—several people can wear that shoe.

[213] On June 16, 2020, Cole released a song titled, "Snow on tha Bluff" addressing an unnamed woman, assumed to be Noname, while also touching on police brutality and race relations during the George Floyd protests.

[216] Cole eventually addressed backlash in a series of tweets, defending his statements in the song and encouraging listeners to follow Noname on social media.

[232] In March 2015, Project Panther, the business of Cole's mentor Jay-Z, acquired Aspiro, the owner of the music streaming service Tidal, for a reported $56 million.

[233] J. Cole is a minor shareholder of the service, along with 15 other artist stakeholders, including Kanye West, Usher, Alicia Keys, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Madonna, Daft Punk, deadmau5, and Nicki Minaj.

The lineup included all of Dreamville's artists as well as SZA, Big Sean, Nelly, 21 Savage, 6LACK, Davido, Teyana Taylor, Saba, Rapsody, and Mez.