Claim: J. Cole works with Ibrahim Hamad.

4 Your Eyez Only is the fourth studio album by American rapper J. Cole . It was released on December 9 , 2016 , by Dreamville Records , Roc Nation and Interscope Records . The album was Cole 's first release with Interscope -- his previous albums were released by Columbia . The album also serves as Dreamville 's president Ibrahim Hamad first executive producer credit for a Cole album . Most of these recordings took place from 2015 to 2016 , with the production on the album was primarily handled by Cole himself , alongside several other record producers such as Vinylz , Boi-1da , Cardiak , Ron Gilmore , Frank Dukes , Chargaux and Elite , among others . Promoting the release , Cole released a one-hour documentary -LRB- by the same name -RRB- on April 15 , 2017 on HBO , featuring music from the album . 4 Your Eyez Only was released exactly two years after Cole 's previous studio album , 2014 Forest Hills Drive .   The album received generally positive reviews from critics , some of whom called it Cole 's best album to date . 4 Your Eyez Only debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 , selling 363,000 copies in its first week -LRB- 492,000 with additional album-equivalent units -RRB- earning Cole his fourth consecutive number-one album in the country . It had the third-largest weekly sales for an album in 2016 . On January 12 , 2017 , 4 Your Eyez Only was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America , and was certified platinum on April 7 , 2017 . The album also debuted at number one on Billboards Canadian Albums Chart . The album was supported by two singles : `` Deja Vu '' and `` Neighbors '' .