It isn’t uncommon for artists to hold listening sessions for press and industry mainstays a week or two before their albums drop. More than just a privileged experience, the practice helps media outlets determine how to cover an upcoming release. But on Thursday (June 6), J. Cole plans to flip the script on the common practice.
Cole will be holding a private listening of his June 18 Born Sinner LP for media tonight in New York City, but he has found a pretty cool way to treat his fans to an advanced listen as well. “Born Sinner will stream 1 time tomorrow at these exact coordinates … 8pm EST/ 7pm CT/ 5pm PST,” the Roc Nation MC tweeted on Wednesday night while linking to a site with latitude and longitude coordinates in Atlanta, Boston, New York, Chicago, Toronto, Houston, Los Angeles and Cole’s native Fayetteville, North Carolina.
The concept is similar to Kanye West‘s May 17 premiere of his , for which he gathered crowds in various cities and projected the clip on a number of public buildings. Cole’s execution is a little more involved, however. Before fans show up to the designated locations, they must first download the LSNR application on their iPhones or Androids. “Please bring 1. iphone fully charged, 2. with LSNR app downloaded and enabled, and 3. favorite pair of headphones,” he tweeted. “This is for those that can’t be at the NYC listening tomorrow night.”
The “Power Trip” MC has been boasting about his album for some time now, but at the same time he has managed to keep a lot of details under lock and key. On Wednesday he finally released Born Sinner‘s 21-song track listing on Twitter. Kendrick Lamar, 50 Cent, Miguel, TLC and James Fauntleroy all appear, and though Nas doesn’t make an appearance, Cole seems to have dedicated a track to God’s Son titled “Let Nas Down.”
Cole is so confident in the quality of his album that he moved its original June 25 release date up to June 18, so he could release the same day as Kanye West’s highly-anticipated Yeezus album.
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