Myron B. Pitts: J. Cole mural pops up in Durham

A Greensboro artist known for his highly visual and detailed displays of hip-hop musicians and other subjects recently completed an impressive rendering of Fayetteville native son J. Cole.

You’ll have to travel a bit from here to see it in person. 

An artist known as JEKS (Brian Lewis) on Saturday shared on Instagram a picture of the completed mural. It is one of 40 murals by different artists that are part of UHillWalls, which bills itself as a walkable art district in University Hill, “a mixed-use redevelopment of an abandoned shopping center.”

JEKS writes: “It was such an awesome few days surrounded by 40+ other artists killing it.”

The mural is based on a photograph of Cole taken by music photographer Jonathan Mannion.

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J. Cole, whose first name is Jermaine, was born at a military hospital in Germany and was raised from the age of 8 months in Fayetteville. He graduated Terry Sanford High School, where he played basketball. 

Cole is one of the leading lights in the hip-hop industry, has a string of No. 1 albums and has won a Grammy and multiple other music awards. A protege of Jay-Z, he burst out of the New York City hip-hop scene but has maintained close ties to North Carolina and Fayetteville.

He and his wife, Melissa Heholt, who both attended St. John’s University, live in the Triangle. They have two children. 

Cole curates an annual Dreamville Festival in Raleigh, but it was canceled this past spring because of COVID-19. The 2019 music festival drew an estimated 40,000 people to Dix Park — half of whom were from out of state, according to a story on ABC-11 News.

Cole comes to Fayetteville frequently, often to support Dreamville Foundation, his outreach program for youths. The foundation supports Find-a-Friend, a mentoring program that is part of Fayetteville Urban Ministry. The foundation helped provide funding for a Youth Ministry Center completed in 2018.

In May, Cole and Dallas Mavericks basketball star Dennis Smith, who is also from Fayetteville, marched in a downtown rally for racial justice in the wake of the death of George Floyd at the hands of police.

Opinion editor Myron B. Pitts can be reached at mpitts@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3559.