For the Reporter

J. Cole, an award-winning rapper, record producer and songwriter – with special guest Bas – opens the Washington State Fair on Friday, Sept. 2, part of the Columbia Bank Concert Series.

In 2015, Cole won Album of the Year at the BET Hip Hop Awards and Top Rap Album at the Billboard Music Awards. He was also a nominee for Best Rap Album at the 58th Grammy Awards and has received many additional accolades for his work.

Tickets for the concert go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday. Tickets are $115 (Golden Circle), $100 and $70 include fair gate admission. Tickets will be available at www.thefair.com or by phone at 888-559-FAIR (3247) daily, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tickets can also be purchased in person at the box office at 9th Avenue Southwest and Meridian Street on Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Online and phone purchases are subject to standard processing fees. Tickets purchased on site will be charged a $2 per ticket service fee.

Cole debuted in 2007 with his mixtape The Come Up. He followed this with a second mixtape, The Warm Up (2009), and shined on “A Star Is Born” from Jay-Z’s album The Blueprint 3. A fervent fan base – of boys and girls, men and women – were with him. It’s for them that Cole has since 2013 conducted an annual tour called “Dollar And A Dream,” where fans willing paying one buck are treated to tracks from his early work. That’s payback.

And they say you can’t go home again. Following 2011’s Cole World: The Sideline Story and 2013’s Born Sinner, Jermaine Lamarr Cole, aka Roc Nation rapper J. Cole, has returned to his childhood home in Fayetteville, N.C., on his new, third album: 2014 Forest Hills Drive.

Forest Hills Drive is a concept record about how a boy discovered his purpose, written from the perspective of a superstar rapper questioning the facets of fame. It is a meditation on the value of love relative to worldly success. And it is an extraordinary work from an artist who continues to grow and create. The narrative is a tale of Cole’s and also serves as a series of metaphors that complete a story of passion, growth and ultimately reflection. It’s an album to ingest as a whole with the sum of its parts creating the full tale.

Known for his reflective lyricism, J. Cole attributes his musical identity to the house where, crucially, he had his first ‘own bedroom’. “Having my own room allowed me turn into who I am. I enjoy privacy, I enjoy being by myself. That came from having my own room. Having my own room allowed me to shape myself,” Cole said.

For more information: jcolemusic.com.

Bas:

The youngest of five children of Sudanese parents, Bas was born in Paris and raised in New York. His musical tastes shaped by a mixture of gritty New York City raps and his brother, DJ MOMA’s euro soul sound; Bas started making music in 2010 with a unique style and hasn’t looked back since.

After gaining acclaim with his Quarter Water Raised Me series, and a feature on Cole’s platinum album Born Sinner, Bas became the first artist signed to Cole’s Dreamville imprint with Interscope in 2014. His debut project, Last Winter, arrived in April to much fanfare. Bas continued his ascent in music by headlining his own “Last Winter” tour in June, and supporting both Ab-Soul on the “These Days” tour and J. Cole on the “Forest Hills Drive” tour.

After tirelessly honing his craft both in the studio and on the road, Bas released his second project, “Too High to Riot” under under Dreamville/Interscope in March. The album has accumulated between 60-70 million streams. In support of the album, Bas headlined a 27 city tour across the U.S. and Canada.

For more information: dreamville.com.

For more info about the Sept. 2-25 fair (closed Tuesdays), visit www.thefair.com.