J. cole album cover analysis

1. Context: J. Cole’s ‘Born
Sinner’ album, his 2
nd
studio album. J. Cole
is an American hip-hop/rap
artist, therefore a
controversial album cover
would suit the genre. The
cover is of a devil in light
and dark, with a crown
above its head, connoting
bad being good.
The reception theory is a good
devil, which people will discuss
to understand why the devil has
a crown to try and come up with
a semantic meaning for it.
There being a crown above a
devils head, the album cover
has binary oppositesas they are
connoting related behaviours
(good and bad) but they are the
opposite meanings of
behaviour.
The name of the album is ‘Born
Sinner’ which suits the album
cover, as it is a baby with devil
horns, implying that he was
never born perfect, and has
learnt from his mistakes in
music, which are the sins.
The devils head is half in the
dark and half in the light. This
could mean that without music
he is a sinner, but with music he
is good.
The reception theory of this album
cover is that J. Cole was a trouble
maker through his life; therefore he
was born a sinner. Whereas if you
think about it more it may have other
meanings with there being a crown
above the devils head, which could
mean he wasn’t born perfect but he’s
heading up for great things.