"High for Hours" is a song by American rapper

J. Cole Jermaine Lamarr Cole (born January 28, 1985) is an American rapper and record producer. Born on a military base in Germany and raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Cole initially gained recognition as a rapper following the release of his d ...

. The song was released as a single on January 18, 2017. It was produced by

Elite In political and sociological theory, the elite (french: élite, from la, eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. D ...

, with co-production from Cam O'bi. The song was considered for Cole's fourth studio album, ''

4 Your Eyez Only ''4 Your Eyez Only'' is the fourth studio album by American rapper J. Cole. It was released on December 9, 2016, by Dreamville Records, Roc Nation and Interscope Records. The album was Cole's first release with Interscope—his previous albums we ...

'', but was not included. It was uploaded to Cole's SoundCloud page on Martin Luther King Day, January 16, 2017, and has over 11 million plays on SoundCloud as of October 2018. It treats themes including oppression, revolution, and a meeting with Barack Obama.

Background

Producer

spoke about the song in an interview with ''DJBooth'' saying:

Critical reception

Writing for Odyssey, Paul Watson Jr. called the track an "emotional journey" saying, "From a personal perspective, this four-and-a-half minute, three-verse song took me on a roller coaster of different emotional synapses, which isn’t by any means uncharacteristic of Cole. What was interesting, however, was the cerebral approach to lyrics Cole took, which is usually a trait attributed to Kendrick Lamar, while simultaneously maintaining his characteristic simplicity."

Chart performance

References

{{authority control 2017 songs J. Cole songs Songs written by J. Cole 2017 singles Roc Nation singles Interscope Records singles Jazz rap songs