J. Cole Jacks Kanye West’s Promo Strategy? Announces Nationwide Live Stream

Grammy-winning rapper Kanye West may have motivated more than just J. Cole's Born Sinner album release bump as the Roc Nation protégé appears to now have applied Ye's idea of premiering new music nationwide simultaneously.

According to reports, Cole is holding Born Sinner album listening sessions in nearly ten cities tonight (June 6).

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. (MTV)

Fans located in the designated cities outside of New York will have to follow a set of rules in order to fully enjoy the listening experience.

The concept is similar to Kanye West’s May 17 premiere of his “New Slaves” music video, 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.” (MTV)

Last month, Kanye shocked the world by premiering his “New Slaves” Yeezus single through projection screens in cities across the world.

Tonight Kanye West premiered “New Slaves,” the first single from his forthcoming LP, by projecting a video on buildings across the world. His site includes a map of times and locations for those projections, 66 in all. It’s the same song Hudson Mohawke spun in Poland recently. Earlier this month, the rapper previewed new material at the Met Ball and Adult Swim’s upfront, but decent recordings from those events have been scarce. Tonight’s launch was better documented. (Stereo Gum)

A few weeks ago, Cole credited West for inspiring the decision to bump his Born Sinner release date up a week.

“Instantly the lightbulb [turned on]… it got real. I made one phone call to somebody that would know, just to make sure first. As soon as I got it confirmed, I was like, ‘Yo…’ The idea hit me instantly: ‘You got to go to that date,'” he said. “I’m not going to sit [here]… I worked too hard to come a week later after Kanye West drops an amazing album. It’d be like, ‘Oh and J.Cole dropped too, a week later.’ Nah. I’m going to go see him on that date. He’s the greatest. So it’s like, I’m a competitor by nature so it was instant, it wasn’t even a thought,” the Roc Nation artist continued. (Billboard)