The Bard and the Born Sinner: Soliloquy

Speaking of Hamlet’s meditative ramblings, one of Shakespeare’s signature techniques is the soliloquy — a passage where a character speaks their innermost thoughts aloud, alone on stage, and directly towards the audience. Soliloquies were a chance for Shakespeare to dive into profound introspection and reveal the conflicted thoughts and philosophical debates present in the minds of his characters. Macbeth’s cynical “tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” speech is a good example of that. In those legendary lines, Macbeth likens life to a “brief candle” and “a walking shadow,” a mere performance “full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.” Through this poetic monologue, the audience can witness Macbeth’s soul laid bare as he wrestles with existential despair. These soliloquies were in a way the Elizabethan equivalent of a rapper providing a vulnerable, conscious verse, letting the audience into their innermost hopes and anxieties. 

J. Cole is a master of introspective narrative. Many of his songs play out like musical soliloquies, personal confessions or meditations delivered in rhyme. His style often forgoes big hooks or popular features in favor of a continuous, soul-searching flow, which can often feel similar to a character’s pondering recitation on stage. “The Climb Back” is a nearly six-minute stream of consciousness where Cole audits his own spirit in real time. He asks questions of himself and his listeners, beginning the song with intensely interrogative first lines: “Are you doing this work to facilitate growth, or to become famous? / Which is more important? / Getting or letting go?”These opening questions are effectively rhetorical, the onramp to a conversation with himself, not unlike Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” dilemma. Cole is probing his own motives and values in front of the listener, and the engaging effect is profoundly Shakespearean. He uses the question to invite the listener into a relatable inner debate about purpose or ambition. As one critic noted, “The Climb Back” finds Cole “showcasing the raw essence of emceeing” with a lyrical exhibition of “complexity, depth, and emotional grit.” (https://thyblackman.com/2025/06/05/8-j-cole-songs-that-showcase-his-lyricism-legacy-and-social-commentary/) In other words, he is baring his soul similarly to how Shakespeare’s heroes reveal their true selves in their solitary speeches.

Despite the solitary or intimate nature of these songs and speeches, their impact goes beyond the individual. Both Cole’s and Shakespeare’s introspective storytelling can blur the lines between personal narrative and broader human experiences. In the song “January 28th,” named after Cole’s birthday, he delivers a self-reflective soliloquy on legacy, faith, and identity. The song’s structure is simple, having no chorus, and its production is bare, consisting only of Cole and a mellow beat.  as he muses on everything from his place in the greater world of hip-hop to the state of racial tensions throughout the world. This recalls Shakespeare’s ability to have a character speak to the audience about general truths while seemingly referring to  themselves. Cole blends confidence with humility in this track, as he asserts his worth while unpretentiously wrestling with spiritual questions, much like Shakespearean characters who can be bold and self-doubting in the same breath. The result is a song that can feel personally and universally resonant and is inheritably relatable, echoing how a Shakespearing soliloquy touches every listener's heart while arising from the heart of only one character. 

Another parallel can be seen in the way in which Shakespeare and Cole give a voice to others’ stories as a form of introspection. Shakespeare would sometimes have his characters tell a story or assume another’s perspective. An example of this is Hamlet staging a play to reflect his own family’s guilt. J. Cole does something similar in “4 Your Eyez Only,” where he narrates the tragic life of a friend as a letter to that friend's daughter. In doing so, he is performing a dramatic monologue in character, channeling the interiority of someone else as he takes on their persona. The song’s narrative twist, that Cole is speaking as his late friend, is reminiscent of Shakespeare’s penchant for dramatic irony and layered voices. The almost eight-minute stream of consciousness transcends the typical song format, just as Shakespeare’s plays could often transcend simple narratives, conventional dramatic forms, and metered verse to become meditations on life itself. Through this technique, Cole, just like Shakespeare, shows a keen sense of empathy, and a willingness to explore many facets of the human experience. Both artists use these introspective narratives to reveal themselves, as well as to shine a light on society and human nature at large.