J. Cole has come an incredibly long way since that dollar and a dream.

And now that his fourth studio success, 4 Your Eyez Only, has upgraded to gold status after being released only a little over a month ago (Dec. 9), the Fayetteville rapper is stretching those dreams into realities as well.

4 Your Eyez Only raked in 492,000 sales in just the first week of its release, as the project rushed to become the third largest album debut of 2016.

Today, that number has ascended past 500,000 sales, creeping toward more promising platinum status territory for Cole. Its official certification date on Wednesday (Jan. 11) joins other works from hip-hop's key players, such as Travis Scott’s “Goosebumps” and “3500,” Future’s “Trap N****s” and the Drake-assisted “No Shopping” by French Montana.

Closing out 2016 with a bang, one of the album’s singles, "Deja Vu," also earned him his first-ever spot on Billboard’s Top 10. Nine others hit slots on the Billboard Top 40 list, all in the week following the LP’s surprise release. And that would make only the first of two surprises the Dreamville founder has up his sleeves, as Top Dawg Entertainment artist and Black Hippy member Ab-Soul revealed that the Kendrick Lamar-J. Cole project was in the works.

Look out, 2017. This year in music is Cole’s for the taking.