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2014ForestHillsDrive_TheBobbyPenOur beloved, North Carolina rapper J. Cole has been on the front lines raising awareness and speaking out about the injustices we’ve been seeing with police/citizen relations.

Cole was one of the first rappers to pack up and head down to Ferguson, Mo. to show solidarity with protesters after the fatal police shooting of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown.

We caught him again last week in New York City after the non-indictment Grand Jury decision in the NYPD Chokehold Eric Garner death. He even released an emotional and provocative track “Be Free,”  declaring “All we wanna do is break the chains off… All we wanna do is be free!”

The touching track includes audio from news reports with eye witness testimonies. You’ve got to have a coal for a heart if you don’t feel something. Cole makes the song cry in real life.

While we appreciate his passion and action– in fact, I respect it considering he’s at a fragile juncture in his career, I have some questions.

Obviously, he doesn’t care about fame or the money, and he seems to genuinely want to see change– by any means. In the documentary produced to support this recent release, he states: “I don’t want it … if I have to become someone who’s so out of touch with what’s real.”

Today, he releases his third studio album 2014 Forest Hills Drive. So far, it has been well received and I wouldn’t expect any less– especially after the lyrics to controversial song Fire Squad which takes shots at white artists who are heavily influenced by black culture.

Listen to the full stream of 2014 Forest Hills Drive:

But my question is, how come when rappers become politically aware they stop grooming themselves?

Is it the Dr. Cornel West Effect? Does an unkempt bush make one more convincing? Is freedom fighting so involved that one simply doesn’t have time to hop in the barber’s chair? Should it matter that one’s hair hasn’t been cut or combed?

In the grand scheme of things, of course not. Rappers are artists and should be judged by their work and nothing more. But I really want to know what that represents to them.

We watched Kanye slip into the dark side during 2009’s 808’s & HeartbreaksQ-Tip’s hair is often been questionable, but most recently, during New York protests, we see him donning a crazy ‘fro.

Kendrick Lamar’s new look has been the most confusing of them all. He recently released a new motivational video called “i” where we can see that his stylist quit braiding half-way through the job.

I’m just wondering, is a messy mane supposed to make us care more for the cause or the artists’ well-being?

Chime in. What do you think? Should we care about the hair of our rappers or just the lyrics?