A week after Top Dawg Entertainment President Punch Henderson debunked rumors of beef between rappers on his label and J. Cole, TDE’s Ab-Soul has admitted that he was upset with Cole over their collaboration “Pi“… but not for the reason fans might think.
“Pi,” which appeared on Cole’s April mixtape Might Delete Later, raised fans’ antennae for potential beef, as it appeared on the tape with “7 Minute Drill,” Cole’s response to Kendrick’s incendiary verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That.” After K. Dot called out J. Cole and Drake for supposedly “sneak dissing” him on their collab “First Person Shooter,” Cole was the first to accept the challenge. However, featuring K. Dot’s former labelmate and Black Hippy band member Ab-Soul on “Pi” had some listeners wondering if there was some petty gamesmanship on Cole’s part.
As it turns out, no, there wasn’t. Cole decided his heart wasn’t in it, deleted “7 Minute Drill” from streamers, and moved on eventually addressing things on “Port Antonio” early this month. However, at the same time, Soul dropped his own new song “Squeeze 1st 2,” with lyrics listeners believed were shots at Cole for involving him in the “beef” with Kendrick. However, Punch clarified on Twitter that all the involved verses and songs had been recorded before the “beef,” and that “Squeeze 1st 2” had little to do with “Port Antonio.”
Yesterday, Ab-Soul appeared on DJ Hed’s SiriusXM show, Effective Immediately, and reflected on his real issue with “Pi” — that he wasn’t informed by Daylyt, the third collaborator on the song, about Cole’s involvement until after the fact. “I’m lowkey hot,” he joked. “I’m like, ‘Lyt, bro, this is one of the best rappers in the world… I’m on his head like, ‘Bro, you have to let me know if you’re gonna send this shit off. He ate us up.’” Soul also made absolutely clear that “Cole is the homie, for real,” but that he was only upset because he wanted the North Carolina rapper to appear on his song “F*ck Out My Face [FOMF],” but rather than delivering the 12-bar verse that needed, issued 48 bars on “Pi.”
You can watch the full interview above to get Ab-Soul’s hilarious story.
J. Cole’s Might Delete Later project was one the biggest moments in hip-hop this year. It was preceded by several vlogs on the North Carolina rapper’s YouTube of the same name. It surprised many, as no one thought they would culminate into a full collection of tracks. Unfortunately, the collection of B-sides sort of came and went for a lot of people, with the actually deleted “7 Minute Drill” playing a big role. The futile Kendrick Lamar diss track did not come across as authentic and it led to the infamous J. Cole apology at Dreamville Fest. However, it did spawn a few highlights like “Trae Tha Truth in Ibiza” which now has a remix.
Overall, the original song does not have anything to do with the Houston rapper. J. Cole is more so talking about he is fed up with the labels and expectations. The on-brand themes and fantastic lyricism make it a standout and this remix is equally as fulfilling. Trae Tha Truth sticks to the program, as his verse sees him get real about his career and his future plans. Structurally, his portion follows Cole’s second verse and his outro from the original remains the same. You can hear the new version with the link below.
Listen To “Trae Tha Truth In Ibiza (Remix)” By Trae Tha Truth & J. Cole
Quotable Lyrics:
I just be dealing with life on a level they got to be worth it I can no longer be at we know that s***’ll be worthless Wake up and think of my kids I gotta live with the purpose I’m in the need to eat depending on who going to serve it Look at myself in the mirror feel like it’s going to be versus Walk in the room watching these rap n****s grabbing their purses
J Cole has had an interesting 2024 so far. Overall, it began with him being dissed by his good friend Kendrick Lamar on Like That. Subsequently, he hit back on the album Might Delete Later. The song “Seven Minute Drill” was his official response, however, as the album name suggests, he deleted it. This decision came after a much-discussed apology at Dreamvillefest where he essentially took back what he said about Lamar. Since then, Cole has mostly stayed out of the limelight, aside from a couple of highly-debated verses here and there.
Well, today, J Cole is back. This is all thanks to his new music video for “Trae The Truth In Ibiza,” which can be viewed below. As you will see, this new music video is supposed to elicit some nostalgia. It is filled with archival footage of the artist. From his early days touring, we get to see all of the locations Cole has visited throughout his career. For longtime fans, it is the kind of video that is going to get you excited for the old days. However, it should also get you excited for The Fall Off, which is supposed to be coming out either later this year, or early on in 2025.
Let us know what you think of this new music video, in the comments section down below. How did you feel about Might Delete Later? Do you feel like this is one of the best albums of they year so far, or was it a bit of a disappointment? Additionally, stay tuned to HNHH for the latest news and updates from around the music world. We will continue to keep you informed on all of your favorite artists and their upcoming projects.
It looks like J. Cole is done lying low in the aftermath of his aborted battle with Kendrick Lamar. After dropping the Kendrick-dissing track “7 Minute Drill,” having regrets about the song’s lukewarm reception, removing the song from streaming services, and seemingly going on vacation to let the dust settle, he returned in earnest with a new video for his Might Delete Later track, “Trae The Truth In Ibiza.”
The “Trae The Truth In Ibiza” video follows the lo-fi approach of the rest of the album’s rollout, incorporating camcorder footage of the two rappers on tour together in the titular Spanish isle. In much of the footage, we see a baby-faced J. Cole from early in his career as the dreadlocked, nearly 40-year-old version reflects on how far he’s come in the pursuit of his rap dreams.
Although J. Cole appeared reluctant to publicly promote himself in the aftermath of the Kendrick kerfuffle, a few of the artists for whom he’d previously recorded verses did drop their new songs featuring him. Future and Metro Boomin had previously secured a Cole feature on their second joint album called “Red Leather,” which dropped just as he was pondering withdrawing “7 Minute Drill” and just before that song debuted at No.6 on the Billboard Hot 100. Then, New York rising star Cash Cobain dropped “Grippy” with an experimental J. Cole verse that some fans weren’t feeling in light of the preceding month. Finally, Tems featured Cole on her debut album Born In The World on the song “Free Fall.” So, Cole hasn’t been completely invisible lately, but this is the first thing he’s released of his own accord — perhaps this means he’s ready to emerge and finally start working in earnest on releasing his long-waited album, The Fall Off.
Watch J. Cole’s “Trae The Truth In Ibiza” video above.
Might Delete Later is out now via Cole World Inc./Interscope Records.
He meant that — and he really took Might Delete Later literally.
As of Friday afternoon, April 12, “7 Minute Drill” is no longer available to stream on Apple Music, Spotify, or YouTube. The song is still listed on the Might Delete Later tracklist, but it’s grayed out with no option to hit play.
“I’m so proud of that project, except for one part,” Cole said on stage at Dreamville, as captured by HipHopDX. “It’s one part of that sh*t that make me feel like, man, that’s the lamest sh*t I ever did in my f*cking life, right?” After acknowledging that a lot of people don’t want to hear an apology or anything to dilute the perception of rap beef, Cole said, “I damn near had a relapse” because of how much it had been weighing on him.
Read more from Cole’s apology below.
“All of this time of me moving on my own accord, for the first time, I was tested. Why am I tested? Because I got the world and I got my n****s like, ‘What you gonna do, Cole?’ Boy, I must have had a thousand missed calls. Oh, my f*cking God. Texts flooded. I couldn’t even answer my sh*t. ‘N****, it’s wartime!’ N****s wanna see blood.
I was conflicted because, one, I know my heart. You know what I mean? And I know how I feel about my peers. These two n****s that I just been blessed to even stand beside in this game, let alone chase they greatness, so I felt conflicted because I’m like, ‘Bruh, I know I don’t really feel no way.’ But the world wanted to see blood. So I say all of that to say, in my spirit of trying to get this music out — I ain’t gonna lie to y’all — I moved in a way that, spiritually, feels bad on me.
I tried to, like, jab my n**** back, and I tried to keep it friendly. But at the end of the day, when I listen to it and when it comes out and I see the talk, that sh*t don’t make me feel right in my spirit. That sh*t disrupts my f*cking peace. So, what I want to say right here tonight is — in the midst of me doing that and trying to find a little angle and downplay this n****’s f*cking catalog and his greatness — I wanna say here tonight, how many people think Kendrick Lamar is one of the greatest motherf*ckers to ever touch a f*cking microphone? Dreamville, y’all love Kendrick Lamar, correct? As do I.”
Only J. Cole would include Gucci Mane in a list of features on the opening track of his new mixtape, Might Delete Later, and then turn him into Big Rube. Like most of J. Cole’s output, how you feel about this probably depends on how you feel about J. Cole, in general.
Personally, I’m sort of mystified by him. As a beneficiary of the Wild West days of the blog era, he’s been unexpectedly successful using a style that, by practically any other metric, should be woefully out-of-style, a quixotic, backward-looking flow harkening to the days when Rawkus Records had backpack rappers overachieving left and right. (This isn’t a slight on Rawkus, by the way. But let’s just say that the rappers who most inspired J. Cole weren’t exactly known for their commercial successes amid the shiny suit era.)
I wouldn’t call Cole a “relic,” but his worshipful, borderline quixotic approach to lyrics-over-everything rap has made him a divisive figure among hip-hop fans. My pet theory is that his connections to Jay-Z and the anything-goes openness of the era into which he made his entry into the public consciousness meant he got way further than perhaps he should have with a style that many fans see as regressive and boring. Certainly, he got further than a whole slew of similarly ’90s-obsessed underground sound revivalists.
This isn’t even a new observation for me. In myKOD review in 2018, I said his fifth studio album “doesn’t hold up when you think about it critically for more than ten seconds.” In my review for its follow-up, The Off Season, I questioned whether his commitment to the craft of rap “leads to a more entertaining product” at the end of the day.
I even wrote a feature in 2021 comparing him to controversial director Zack Snyder — a comparison that has taken on some fascinating dimensions in the wake of the critical panning of Syner’s latest two-part film project, Rebel Moon. The obvious parallel is Cole’s new mixtape, which has drawn attention for its warlike intentions — and Cole’s meek withdrawal thereof in the span of a weekend.
That it was the second project overshadowed by this overblown feud between Drake and Kendrick Lamar is telling. Even more so is the microcosm of the project in the example I cited above. I’m unsure who exactly was clamoring for Gucci Mane, Big Guwop, the godfather of trap, to perform Def Poetry spoken word like Dewey Jenkins in The Boondocks. And I hate to fall back on cliché, but I found the effect more soporific than energizing, the way their previous collaboration, “There I Go” with Mike Will Made-It was.
Might Delete Later arrived by surprise as fans awaited word of Cole’s long-promised seventh album, The Fall-Off. He’d previously explained the portentous title as the ultimate answer for his self-questioning after reaching the mountaintop of his success. “I had a real talk with myself… ‘You made it to where you wanted to make it to. Do you wanna keep going or do you just want to chill and go start a family? Do you want to retire right now?’”
Might Delete Later might have been better served with a release date after fans had also received that answer, because its misplacement ahead of The Fall-Off suggests mileage on those metaphorical legs that encourage — or even demand — a little more time on the sidelines. Or maybe even the purchase of a spiffy suit and putting that communications degree to work on a regional cable affiliate (what’s the rap equivalent of a broadcast analyst job? Please, just no more podcasts [shudders]). Cole does what he does here, admirably, but… it doesn’t feel like he’s pushing himself, growing, getting better, or feeling the exhilaration he touted as his goal in Slam‘s profile of him a few years ago.
Even the highest point of the tape, the Dipset-sampling “Ready ’24,’ is a nostalgic nod to Cole’s high-school days, complete with an appearance from an original Diplomat, Cam’ron. It’s a moment designed to invoke the same excitement of The Rock reappearing in the WWE a few months before Wrestlemania, but winds up having a similar effect to that particular stunt; a crowd disappointed that the focus had shifted from the possibility of an electrifying future to a storied but stodgy past. Hip-hop has always been about moving forward; why is J. Cole so obsessed with looking back?
And if he’s going to insist on holding over traditions from rap’s past, why, of all things, does he keep employing rap’s problematic treatment of queerness? In an era in which Cakes Da Killa, Lil Nas X, Saucy Santana, and more can share space and mic time with vanguards like Jack Harlow and Latto, J. Cole’s antitrans punchlines on “Pi” feel like the most cumbersome ball of cobwebs clouding his ambitions of immortality. For someone who wants to sit on the mountaintop, he still seems more cozy in his caves, excavating lyrical gems — and the occasional lump of coal — than surveying the landscape and spreading his wings. J. Cole may not be falling off just yet, but his approach could use a refresh.
Might Delete Later is out now via Dreamville/Interscope.
When J. Cole titled his new mixtape Might Delete Later, fans had no idea how literal that name would end up being — or how quickly the prophesy would come to pass. Just three days passed before J. Cole declared one of the songs, “7 Minute Drill,” the “lamest sh*t I did in my f*ckin’ life.” The song, built around a halfhearted response to Kendrick Lamar’s fiery call-out on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That,” received a somewhat lukewarm response from the hip-hop community, who questioned the premises of many of its positions on Kendrick Lamar’s musical output along with the wisdom of J Cole chucking those particular stones from the inside of a glass mansion.
After he apologized for the song, are likely wondering whether he intends to withdraw it from streaming completely. And while that wouldn’t be completely unreasonable… it would be utterly horrible optics.
The last time J. Cole got into a simliarly sensational tiff with another rapper was in 2020, when he released “Snow On Tha Bluff” and stumbled backwards into an ill-advised beef with Noname. In that case, he was met with the concise but stern response “Song 33,” as well as disapproval from peers who called him out for distracting from more meaningful discussions at the time. Notably, although both rappers expressed regrets for the short-lived feud, both songs are still on streaming.
Should J. Cole retract “7 Minute Drill” completely when he did not do the same for “Snow On Tha Bluff,” the contrast would almost certainly call scrutiny to his questionable views toward women; some commenters have already noted that he apologized for dissing Kendrick (this after subtly and overtly inviting battle for years) but not for lyrics perceived as transphobic elsewhere on Might Delete Later. On “Pi,” he taunts a straw opponent, “I’m seeing hints of a trans fella / In cancel culture’s vicinity, he’s no killer, trust me / Beneath his chosen identity, there is still a pussy.” Fans on Twitter have rightly noted that this is just the latest example in a pattern of lyrics with demeaning views of queerness (see also: the Born Sinner intro “Villuminati,” with multiple uses of a gay slur).
So, as of now, it doesn’t look like J. Cole plans to remove “7 Minute Drill” from streaming, but there are certainly quite a few other tracks in his discograpy that could also use some pruning and apologies.
If you were already exhausted by the so-called “rap beef” (ugh) between J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar after the past week, don’t worrry; you’re in good company. J. Cole himself was apparently done before his diss song, “7 Minute Drill,” was a full 72 hours old. During his set at Dreamville Festival, he straight-up apologized to his good buddy Kendrick and called the track the “lamest sh*t” of his life.
For what it’s worth, his assessment probably came after seeing the less-than-lukewarm response the track received from rap fans online, who questioned his decision to call Kendrick’s Grammy-winning album To Pimp A Butterfly sleep-inducing after that’s been the primary argument against his music on Twitter since before everybody on there became a fake activist in 2014.
It’s also probable that J. Cole realized that he and Kendrick had no real prior animosity and he was just the victim of splash damage from Kendrick’s incisive call-out on Future & Metro Boomin’s “Like That.” Although Kendrick declared “motherf*ck the Big Three / It’s just big me” most of his shots were seemingly reserved for Drake, against whom he has been pitted by rap fans almost since their near-parallel ascensions from the blog era of the late aughties.
In any case, it appears that Cole didn’t really want smoke, was equally disappointed in his own conribution to the three-way feud, and has decided to let the two actual contenders duke it out without his input. If only he’d realized this BEFORE he dropped Might Delete Later, this whole mess could have been avoided.
J. Cole took the stage at Dreamville Music Festival in North Carolina on Sunday, April 7, where he used part of his set to address regret about dissing Kendrick Lamar in his recent song, “7 Minute Drill.” He had initially dropped it after Lamar’s verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That.”
“It’s one part of that sh*t that makes me feel like, man that’s the lamest sh*t I did in my f*ckin’ life, right?” J. Cole said. “And I know this is not what a lot of people want to hear… I just want to come up here and publicly be like, bruh, that was the lamest, goofiest sh*t. I say all that to say it made me feel like 10 years ago when I was moving incorrectly. And I pray that god will line me back up on my purpose and on my path.”
J. Cole then went on to point out just how talented Lamar actually is — and talked to the crowd directly who felt the same. “I want to say right now tonight, how many people think Kendrick Lamar is one of the greatest motherf*cker’s to ever touch a f*ckin’ microphone?” he added. “Dreamville, y’all love Kendrick Lamar, correct? As do I.”
The tension between J. Cole and Lamar, according to Variety, first started when Drake and J. Cole collaborated on “First Person Shooter” — and included a line calling him out in the process. Unlike J. Cole, in the days following Lamar making waves with “Like That,” Drake has not really responded.
Check out a clip of J. Cole feeling bad and praising Kendrick Lamar below.
Kendrick Lamar had perhaps the musical headline of March with his featured appearance on Future and Metro Boomin’s We Don’t Trust You song “Like That.” On the track, he raps, “Motherf*ck the big three, n****, it’s just big me,” an apparent reference to Drake and J. Cole’s 2023 single “First Person Shooter.”
Since then, fans have been waiting for a response from either of the targeted rappers. Last night/this morning (April 5), Cole delivered one on his surprise new mixtape, Might Delete Later. The track of note here is “7 Minute Drill,” which features these lyrics seemingly alluding to Lamar:
“He still doin’ shows, but fell off like The Simpsons / Your first sh*t was classic, your last sh*t was tragic / Your second sh*t put [people] to sleep but they gassed it / Your third sh*t was massive and that was your prime / I was trailin’ right behind and I just now hit mine / Now I’m front of the line with a comfortable lead / How ironic, now that I got it he want somethin’ with me / Well he caught me at the perfect time, jump up and see / Boy, I got here off of bars, not no controversy / Funny thing about it, b*tch, I don’t even want the prestige / F*ck the Grammy’s ’cause them crackers ain’t never done nothin’ for me, ho.”
That still leaves one question:
What Is J. Cole’s “7 Minute Drill?” The Meaning Behind The Title Of His Kendrick Lamar Diss
Ibrahim Hamad, Cole’s longtime manager and Dreamville co-founder, explained on the Say Less Podcast (as Complex notes). Hamad said of Cole, “He does these seven-minute drills […] where he’ll just be like, ‘You got seven minutes.’ It’s basically his way of breaking out of overthinking. Like, ‘Don’t even think about it, start a verse. What are we going to talk about?’ He’ll be like, ‘Yo, Cozz, write a verse about… pizza,’ I don’t know. And then they got seven minutes, and then they put the timer on, and then it’s like, ‘Alright, what you got?’”
.@KingOfQueenz speaking on J. Cole’s 7 minute drills
“It’s basically his way of breaking out of overthinking.”
Say Less Podcast)