A few months back I watched a video posted by HipHopDX explaining the three paths in modern Hip-Hop.
Hip-Hop is now the most popular genre in music and thus has effectively become Pop or at least the modern day equivalent of Pop music.
The dude explaining the whole process made a ton of sense too. He mentioned the three paths and the three artists that represent them: Pop (Drake), Hip-Pop (Kendrick Lamar) & Hip-Hop (J. Cole).
He chose those three artists as they are in today's musical climate at the top of the Hip-Hop food chain. So when listening to Yellow it became very clear that Shane Eagle fit into the latter category.
He is our J. Cole. Now this is not to say that he copied Cole's style or technique or anything like that, but the influence is there and heavily so.
Yes, he does mention that he's not influenced by any of the artists he's compared to, but anyone who listens to Hip-Hop can clearly hear J. Cole.
I can easily use my nephew as an example. He's been in Spain these last few months and when he came back and heard the album on Saturday he thought its a new J. Cole album.
Another more recent example would be my colleague who heard me listening to it today for the 3rd straight time and commented that the new J. Cole album sounds awesome.
This album (Yellow) is the first South African album that I've listened to multiple times back-to-back.
I take nothing away from Shane Eagle, but listening to this makes me feel like Cole's legacy is in good hands should 4 Your Eyez Only be he's final offering, because Shane sounds exactly like Cole.
So in conclusion: Shane Eagle has released South Africa's first ever Hip-Hop classic. Congratulations.