J. Cole’s debut album on Roc Nation has been several years in the making. So long, in fact, the up-and-coming rapper doesn’t even want to throw out a possible release date.

Actually, Cole has a real deadline looming – a summer tour with Rihanna that kicks off in June.

“I know my fans are frustrated with me, because I won’t give a date,”

Says Cole, who makes his Atlantic City debut this weekend at the House of Blues, inside the Showboat Casino-Hotel.

“I only gave a date one time in my career last year, and I smacked myself in the face because it was so unrealistic. Now I say it’s coming soon, and it’s really true, because we’re in the final stages right now.”

As the first artist signed by hip-hop superstar Jay-Z, Cole believes it’s better to get the music right than to release something half-baked.

While he admits to wanting to “make the label people happy,” he’s more concerned with satisfying his own muse than pleasing Roc Nation and its famous founder.

“I think of my own expectations and my pressure on myself,” he says. “I don’t worry about what the world wants me to do. I’m worrying about meeting my expectations.”

As an admirer of the late Tupac Shakur and a fan of the greats – Jay-Z, Nas, Eminem, Outkast’s Andre 3000 – Cole has set a high bar for himself. He also has spoken of wanting to “change the tide of current rap music,” thereby raising those expectations again.

He’s teased fans and critics with a series of well-received mix tapes that have touched on his North Carolina childhood and social issues in ways more insightful than is typical of the genre. He says his record will be in a similar vein.

“My album is really heavy, it’s really emotional, it’s really true,” he says.

If Cole sounds confident about his future, it’s only because he never doubted he would succeed in music.

He is probably one of the few pop artists to have graduated magna cum laude with a degree in communications (and on a full academic scholarship from St. John’s University).

But getting that degree was always just a back-up plan.

“I never wanted to do anything else other than this,” he says. “I never really gave any thought to another career.

“I always knew I was going to go to college. It wasn’t even an option not to go. … Even though she didn’t go, my mother made it seem that important to me.”

Those four years may not lead the 26-year-old to the business world, but they did prepare him for the real world.

 

“I encourage anybody to go – it’s not just important educationally, but socially,” he says. “It’s four more years of a different kind of growing up.”

Mentoring J. Cole

The elephant in the recording studio for J. Cole, who is putting together his debut album, is that his label, Roc Nation, is the personal project of hip-hip star Jay-Z.

Although the latter’s shadow looms large, Cole is glad to have him on his side. He contributed to Jay-Z’s album, “The Blueprint 3,” and hopes to have him return the favor on his first release.

“He’s definitely a mentor,” Cole says. “I just appreciate the fact that he lets me learn and grow on my own. When I need information, I can come to him.”

With or without Jay-Z, Cole is confident he will be able to find an audience for his more probing style of rap.

“As long as I can grab the people who are easily impressed with what’s going on right now, and introduce them to what I’m really about, I feel like I will succeed in changing the course of where rap is going,” he says.