J. Cole, Tar Heel of the Year finalist, fulfilled his dream in his home state of NC

In 2016, during a party at the Contemporary Art Museum on the southern edge of Raleigh’s downtown, Nancy McFarlane met J. Cole for the first time.

McFarlane knew Cole to be a successful rapper with deep North Carolina roots. Still, she said she was “not intimately” familiar with his music, she said in a recent interview.

Soon enough, McFarlane found herself listening to some of his music, gaining a respect for his talent. She already had an appreciation for the vision Cole shared during their long initial conversation at the art museum. Cole was “telling me all his ideas,” she said, for a kind of outdoor, park-based music festival that Raleigh had never seen. She was impressed by his energy, enthusiasm and attention to detail.

“What struck me was how sincere he was and how much he really wanted to do for Raleigh,” said McFarlane, whose mayoral tenure ended in early December. “He really believed in this area and was talking about his studios and all these different ideas for engaging the community, and what (a festival) could mean.”

For years, Cole and his team at Dreamville, the record label he co-founded during his college years at St. John’s University in New York City, had aspired to bring an outdoor music festival to Raleigh. That meeting with McFarlane became part of the origin story behind the Dreamville Festival, which brought more than 40,000 people to Raleigh’s Dorothea Dix Park in April.

The one-day event, the first of its kind at Dix Park, showcased artists from Cole’s Dreamville label, but also national acts like Big Sean, 21 Savage and the Triangle’s Grammy-nominated Rapsody. It will return in April with Cole curating the lineup and a portion of proceeds again benefitting the Dix Conservancy and Cole’s Dreamville Foundation.

The Dreamville Festival was just one of Cole’s achievements in 2019. Last month, Cole, now 34, was nominated for a slew of Grammy Awards, including Best Rap Performance for his song “Middle Child” and for “Down Bad,” a song in which Cole contributes. Meanwhile, “Revenge of the Dreamers III,” a compilation of songs from his label’s artists, is up for the coveted Rap Album of the Year. The awards will be given out Jan. 26.

This year was arguably the most successful of a career that began with mixtapes and ambitious dreams in Fayetteville.

For his accomplishments in music and for helping launch a major music festival in his home state, Cole was a finalist for The News & Observer’s Tar Heel of the Year, which recognizes North Carolina residents who have made lasting and significant contributions in the state and beyond. The Tar Heel of the Year, Gregg Warren, executive director of DHIC, will be published Sunday.

Growing as an artist

Cole, whose first name is Jermaine, was born in Germany but spent most of his childhood and teen years in Fayetteville. There, he played both the violin and varsity basketball and learned how to rap and craft beats, according to a 2011 profile in The Fayetteville Observer.

Before his albums hit the top of the charts and earned him his first Grammy nods — including Best New Artist in 2012 — there were the mixtapes. He recorded the first of those, “The Come Up,” in 2007 while a student at St. John’s University, which he attended on an academic scholarship.

It caught the attention of Jay-Z, who signed Cole in 2009 as the first act on his Roc Nation record label. Looking back, Cole was already well on his way to stardom.

Few musicians can rival the kind of decade he experienced during the 2010s. He released five studio albums between 2011 and 2018. All of them went platinum, and all of them peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

Know for his preference for privacy and avoidance of the media spotlight, Cole declined to be interviewed for this story. He spoke to GQ earlier this year for a rare profile, which published in March. Cole explained his desire to build a life separate from his image that’s curated for the public.

“Everybody hits me up,” Cole told GQ. “I got people texting me, like, ‘Bro, I can’t believe you’re performing the All-Star Game halftime show. Ain’t that so crazy?’ In my mind, I’m just like, ‘Bro, this feels like a job — you know what I mean? ... I don’t like center-of-attention-type moments. Like the camera, mad people, the world watching the arena, and I have to do something right.”

Ibrahim “Ib” Hamad, Cole’s longtime manager and Dreamville co-founder, said it would be easier for Cole to embrace the attention that comes his way, naturally. Instead, Hamad told The News & Observer, Cole has to work hard to maintain the privacy he seeks. It can be difficult, given his success and the demands that come with it.

Cole lives in the Triangle and manages to keep a mostly low profile, according to GQ. He is married with at least one child, though Hamad wouldn’t confirm whether the family had officially expanded. In a song released over the summer, Cole rapped that he and his wife

might be expecting another child.

In addition to his music and his family, Cole’s passions include basketball, which he played in high school. He has made appearances at both North Carolina and N.C. State games, where players are often enthused by his appearance. Cole was at the Smith Center at UNC, shooting around, during the team’s basketball media day in October. He declined reporters’ overtures for interviews.

The Dreamville Festival might have been his most memorable event in his home state in 2019, but it wasn’t the only one. In February, Cole performed at halftime of the NBA All-Star game in Charlotte.

Dreamville Festival’s origins

In North Carolina, and especially in Raleigh, Cole’s 2019 is likely to be remembered most for the Dreamville Festival.

For one day in early April, it transformed the campus of a former mental hospital into a nationwide destination — organizers say at least 70% of attendees were from out of town — and it provided proof of the space’s potential to bring people together.

It was the culmination of years of planning. The Dreamville Festival was originally scheduled for September 2018, but had to be postponed as Hurricane Florence hit the state.

Cole played a lead role behind the scenes but also relied on an extensive support network.

Hamad was instrumental in the festival’s creation along with Sascha Stone Guttfreund, the president of ScoreMore Shows, and Adam Rodney, another Dreamville co-founder and its creative director.

Rodney, like Cole and Hamad, attended St. John’s. The three met there, all with varying aspirations of entering the entertainment business. Cole and Rodney met by chance and became roommates their freshmen year. They bonded over their Southern roots — Cole from North Carolina and Rodney from New Orleans.

Cole and Guttfreund’s relationship began in 2010. Then, Cole, Guttfreund and Hamad traveled around Texas for a tour comprised of three stops, all of them small venues.

“I put ‘tour,’ in air quotes,” Guttfreund said, with a laugh, during a recent phone interview with The N&O.

At the time, Guttfreund was 20 and a junior at the University of Texas. The small tour with Cole was also the first for ScoreMore, the promotional company that Guttfreund founded.

ScoreMore’s growth mirrored that of Cole’s, as a performer, and by 2015, Guttfreund was trying to sell Cole on the idea of a larger collaboration between ScoreMore and Dreamville.

The idea of place has been thematic throughout some of Cole’s music. His 2014 album, “2014 Forest Hills Drive,” references the Fayetteville address where he once lived. The Dreamville Festival became another way for Cole, now a Raleigh resident, to recognize his home state.

“Being able to come back home, it doesn’t get any better than that,” Rodney told The News & Observer. “I think that Raleigh was the perfect city to open up its arms to us, at the right time.”

For a while, the location of Dreamville was in question. Guttfreund visited the Triangle several times to scout locations. He visited the Durham Athletic Park, he said, and other locations in Chapel Hill and Raleigh.

But then Rodney and Cole walked through the empty fields of Dix Park, before the city approved the location. They envisioned what could be possible there. They imagined the stages, the artwork, the crowds. Cole, especially, provided a vision for what he wanted the festival to look and feel like.

Eventually, with the cooperation of McFarlane and other leaders in Raleigh, Dix Park became the ideal site. Nothing, Guttfreund said, compared to Dix Park, a 308-acre site that the city has plans of transforming over the next few decades.

“It was just too perfect,” Guttfreund said of the park, which is known for its hills that, in some places, offers views of Raleigh’s downtown. “As far as that lush, green festival site — it’s special. That park is special.”

‘A true ambassador’

Most things Cole does, he seems to get right. Hamad, Rodney and Guttfreund, who all have known Cole since before he made it big, offer glowing reviews of Cole’s attention to detail, and his hands-on nature with his passions.

It was that way with the Dreamville Festival, from the selection of the musical lineup to its artsy aesthetic, which received an assist from the lush greenery of Dix Park.

To prepare for the festival, Rodney moved to Raleigh from New York City, finding a space to live downtown.

“I felt like when I got to Raleigh, I was like, ‘Man this is perfect,’” Rodney said. “Because here’s Cole at the top of his game, and Raleigh is growing into his own. He can be a true ambassador for this city and this state, and I thought it was the perfect time” for the festival.

Part of Cole’s motivation in bringing the Dreamville Festival to Raleigh, Hamad said, was to provide inspiration for North Carolina artists, those who might be starting out the way Cole did as a teenager in Fayetteville.

Hamad said Cole wanted to show aspiring artists that North Carolina is capable of creating its own vibrant music scene.

Over two stages in April, that became clear as Cole headlined the sold-out festival and included other North Carolina artists on the lineup.

“One of the big things we leaned on him for was crafting and curating the sound and experience,” Rodney said. “And I think that was very, very well-reflected. It felt like family, and that’s part of Cole’s brand. If you were there last year, it was part-festival, part-family reunion, part-barbecue.”

And it was only the beginning, Rodney and others said. Earlier this month, organizers announced the Dreamville Festival will return for a second year. It will again be a one-day event, on April 4.

Guttfreund and Rodney both acknowledged the possibility that the festival could grow, in time. Maybe it lasts an entire weekend, eventually. Maybe longer.

“I want to see the local business and the local shops have their Dreamville nights or name a sandwich after us,” Rodney said. “I want to see locals come out. That’s my goal, is to see the whole city buy into it.”

Tar Heel of the Year Finalist: J. Cole

Age: 34

Hometown: Fayetteville

Education: Graduated with a communications degree from St. John’s University

Occupation: Rapper, producer, CEO of Dreamville label

Accomplishments: Played a leading role in bringing the Dreamville Festival, a one-day music festival, to Dorothea Dix Park in Raleigh in April. Winner and nominee of numerous awards, including American Music Awards, BET Awards, Billboard Music Awards and MTV Video Music Awards. He has been nominated for 11 Grammy Awards; four of those are pending this year’s Grammys.

This story was originally published December 23, 2019 at 5:35 AM with the headline "J. Cole, Tar Heel of the Year finalist, fulfilled his dream in his home state of NC."

Andrew Carter

The News & Observer

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Andrew Carter spent 10 years covering major college athletics, six of them covering the University of North Carolina for The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer. Now he’s a member of The N&O’s and Observer’s statewide enterprise and investigative reporting team. He attended N.C. State and grew up in Raleigh dreaming of becoming a journalist.