J. Cole hasn’t spoken about the meaning of his new album 4 Your Eyez Only, but the title track repeatedly asks a important question:
For your eyes—do you understand?
For your eyes—do you understand me?
For your eyes—do you understand?
It’s not immediately clear what Cole means. But a close listen to the album reveals that there is an underlying narrative that connects the album’s tracks, and explains the title.
At the center of 4 Your Eyez Only is the murder of a friend of J. Cole’s named James McMillan Jr. who got caught up in the streets. On the song “Change,” Cole reenacts his funeral, and raps about seeing his murder reported on the news:
I made it home, I woke up and turned on the morning news
Overcame with a feeling I can’t explain
‘Cause that was my nigga James that was slain, he was 22
Whether it’s fiction or not is unclear, but the entire album seems to be a retelling of McMillan’s life to the young daughter named Nina he left behind. Cole explicitly spells this out on the album’s final track, when he reveals that McMillan told him to communicate his story to his daughter:
Write my story down and if I pass
Go play it for my daughter when she ready
And so I’m leaving you this record for your eyes only
Although this isn’t revealed until the very end, the whole album sets up this theme. The opening track “For Whom The Bell Tolls” is a reference to bells ringing at a funeral. On the second track “Immortal,” Cole assumes the perspective of a young man—presumably McMillan—who sells drugs as a means to escape poverty, despite the risks:
Kingpin nigga, put wings on a crack fiend
If they want a nigga, they gon' have to send a SWAT team
And I’m goin' out like Scarface in his last scene
A legend, what that mean—?
On the track “Ville Mentality,” Cole includes a spoken interlude from a young girl, presumably McMillan’s daughter:
My dad, he died—he got shot cause his friend set him up
And I didn’t go to his funeral—and sometimes when I’m in my room, I get mad at my momma when she mean to me
And she—
And she say, clean up—I say—
I get mad, I slam my door and go in my room—
And then, I get mad and I say, “I wish my dad was here”
A few of the albums tracks—like “Foldin Clothes” and the two “She’s Mine” songs focus on love, fatherhood, and their ability to make a man reconsider his priorities in life. This is a theme that likely applies to Cole’s own life, but also fits in with the McMillan narrative. On “She’s Mine Pt. 2,” Cole raps about the birth of a child inspiring him to turn his life around:
You are now the reason that I fight
I ain’t never did nothing thats right in my whole life
He finally lays everything bare on the album’s final song “4 Your Eyez Only,” revealing that McMillan’s biggest fear is his daughter coming home from school to see he was killed. Tragically, this fear came true:
My worst fear is one day that you come home from school
And see your father face while hearing ‘bout tragedy on news
I got the strangest feeling your daddy gonna lose his life soon
And sadly if you’re listening now it must mean it’s true
McMillan’s daughter is the one thing he’s proud of in life, and he wants Cole to tell her his story since he won’t be there to see her grow up:
Just call it visions from the other side
I got a feeling I won’t see tomorrow
Like the time I’m living on is borrowed
With that said, the only thing I’m proud to say I was a father
Write my story down and if I pass
Go play it for my daughter when she ready
And so I’m leaving you this record for your eyes only
Don’t you ever scratch or disrespect it
As the album ends, Cole explains that despite his life of crime—a life spurred on by the systemic oppression and lack of opportunity that Cole denounces throughout the album—McMillan was a good man because he loved his daughter. By referencing the story and saying it’s for her eyes only, Cole reveals that album is an allegory for McMillan’s life, told to his daughter from his own perspective:
Nah, your daddy was a real nigga
Not ‘cause he was hard
Not because he lived a life of crime and sat behind some bars
Not because he screamed, “Fuck the law,” although that was true
Your daddy was a real nigga 'cause he loved you
For your eyes only
It’s unclear if James McMillan Jr. is a real person, or simply meant to be an avatar for the millions of young men who have met a similar fate. In any case, it seems like Cole wants to tell their stories and become “the voice of the voiceless,” as Dreamville president Ibrahaim Hamad tweeted just hours after the album dropped.
Hopefully Cole will speak on the album’s meaning some day, but for now there’s plenty to parse. Read all the lyrics to 4 Your Eyez Only now.
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