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During an interview with The Combat Jack Show, the "Crooked Smile" hit maker spoke about his childhood and how he had experienced military housing before his parents got divorced. His mom had to leave the base and Cole ended up living in a trailer park in Spring Lake with his mother and brother until they moved to a house on Forest Hills Drive — the same house that inspired his latest album 2014 Forest Hills Drive, and features on the album cover.
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Years later, his mother lost the house, and J. Cole, whose real name is Jermaine Lamarr Cole, bought it back. While he does not live there himself, he does have some big plans for his childhood home.
"Nah, I don't really live there," he revealed. "What we gon' do, we still working it out right now, obviously it's a detailed, fragile situation I don't wanna play with. My goal is to have that be a haven for families. So every two years a new family will come in, they live rent-free. The idea is that it's a single mother with multiple kids and she's coming from a place where all her kids is sharing a room. She might have two, three kids, they're sharing a room. She gets to come here rent-free. I want her kids to feel how I felt when we got to the house."
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It is a beautiful gesture inspired by his difficult childhood and the joy of moving out of the trailer park and into his new home.
To listen to the full interview, head over here (but be warned, there is some strong language).