Jermaine Lamarr Cole, better known as J. Cole, was born on January 28, 1985, in Frankfurt, Germany. His father was an African-American soldier stationed in Germany, and his mother, a white American, worked as a postal worker. When Cole was eight months old, his father left the family, and his mother moved him and his older brother, Zach, to Fayetteville, North Carolina. Growing up in a biracial family in the South, Cole faced various challenges, but he found solace in music.

Cole’s early exposure to music came through his mother’s extensive collection of albums. By age 12, he had begun rapping and, by 15, started producing his own music using an 808 beat machine his mother bought him. He attended Terry Sanford High School and later graduated magna cum laude from St. John’s University in New York City with a degree in Communications and a minor in Business. While at college, Cole's passion for music deepened, and he began to seriously pursue a career in hip-hop.

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