Might Delete Later

J. Cole Stands By ‘7 Minute Drill’ Being ‘The Lamest Sh*t’ And Removed The Song From Streaming Services

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J. Cole surprise-dropped Might Delete Later and seems to have surprised himself more than anybody else. The project included the song “7 Minute Drill,” which was a response to Kendrick Lamar’s verse on “Like That” from Future and Metro Boomin’s We Don’t Trust You. Lamar not-so-subtly dissed Cole and Drake, and Cole hit back with bars like, “Your first sh*t was classic, your last sh*t was tragic / Your second sh*t put n****s to sleep, but they gassed it.” Days later, Cole publicly apologized to Lamar while performing at his annual Dreamville Festival and vowed to remove “7 Minute Drill” from streaming services.

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.”

J. Cole Isn’t Falling Off Yet, But His Approach Could Use A Refresh

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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 my KOD 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.

Will J. Cole’s ‘7 Minute Drill’ Still Be Removed From Streaming?

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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.

Why Did J. Cole Apologize For His Kendrick Lamar Diss ‘7 Minute Drill?’

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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 Called Dissing Kendrick Lamar The ‘Lamest Sh*t’ Of His Life And Actually Thinks He’s ‘The Greatest’

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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.

What Is J. Cole’s ‘7 Minute Drill?’ The Meaning Behind The Title Of His Kendrick Lamar Diss

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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?’”

Might Delete Later is out now via Cole World/Interscope. Find more information here.

Did J. Cole Diss Kendrick Lamar On ‘7 Minute Drill?’

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J. Cole is back, and this time, he’s taking no prisoners. Tonight, Cole dropped Might Delete Later, a new surprise mixtape with 12 new songs. The mixtape arrives two weeks after rapper Kendrick Lamar allegedly dissed him and Drake on “Like That” from Future and Metro Boomin’s collaborative album, We Don’t Trust You.

And with a new mixtape, fans are wondering if Cole will return the smoke. Some listeners immediately caught wind at some subs on a song called “7 Minute Drill,” which seemingly seems to be a response to Lamar.

Did J. Cole diss Kendrick Lamar on “7 Minute Drill?”

On “7 Minute Drill,” Cole alludes to a rapper who he says is past his prime. He notes that the his first album was “classic,” and while his second album was well-received, it wasn’t very exciting. He says that the artist’s third album was his best, and that his most recent project was “tragic.”

“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 shit 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”

Though Cole doesn’t call anyone out by name, it seems to be clear who he’s talking about.

You can listen to “7 Minute Drill” above

Might Delete Later is out now via Cole World and Interscope. Find more information here.

J. Cole Dropped A Surprise New Mixtape ‘Might Delete Later,’ Featuring 12 New Songs

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It was only a matter of time before we got a new album from J. Cole. For the past few years, the Fayetteville native has been teasing an album called The Fall Off, which he has been promising will be his best work. But ahead of the album, Cole dropped a new mixtape called Might Delete Later by surprise.

The mixtape features 12 new tracks, and much of Cole’s Dreamville camp is featured.

The album opens with “Pricey,” a collaboration with his Dreamville protege Ari Lennox, as well as Gucci Mane and Young Dro. Cole’s longtime collaborator Bas is featured on two tracks — the Central Cee-assisted “H.Y.B.” and “Stealth Mode.”

Might Delete Later marks Cole’s first full-length project since 2021’s The Off Season, and makes for a nice gift to tide fans over until The Fall Off.

You can see the Might Delete Later artwork and tracklist below.

1. “Pricey” Feat. Ari Lennox, Gucci Mane, and Young Dro
2. “Crocodile Tearz”
3. “Ready ’24” Feat. Cam’Ron
4. “Huntin’ Wabbitz”
5. “H.Y.B.” Feat. Bas & Central Cee
6. “Fever”
7. “Stickz N Stonez”
8. “Pi” Feat. Daylyt & Ab-Soul
9. “Stealth Mode” Feat. Bas
10. “3001”
11. “Trae The Truth In Ibiza”
12. “7 Minute Drill”

Might Delete Later is out now via Cole World and Interscope. Find more information here.

Gucci Mane is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

J. Cole Teased More New Music With A New ‘Might Delete Later’ Vlog With A Phone Number Fans Can Call To Hear A Song Snippet From Him And Bas

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Back in February, J. Cole used a burner account, @mightdelete_26 to tease a new song, presumably from his long-awaited seventh studio album The Fall Off. Buried amid a mid-90s-esque, ‘zine-style vlog, Cole secreted away a snippet of the track, which featured a new direction for him sonically. It looks like he’s going to continue to use the account to preview new music despite its handle, as he returned with another new post today.

Once again, the post included grainy, low-fi footage interspersing behind-the-scenes vignettes with ’90s CD-ROM UI graphics, Cole’s workout, skate-video fisheye lenses, and infomercial-style advertising. This time, he snuck a couple of snippets into the video, one a mellow banger with fellow Dreamville rapper Bas and the other, with an aggressive beat. At the end, an infomercial graphic gives out “Lil Cole’s burner” phone number next to a spinning Nokia brick phone (indestructible!) as a clip of The Diplomats’ 2002 Diplomatic Immunity track “I’m Ready” plays in the background. Check the video out below.

Fans have been impatiently waiting for The Fall Off since Cole first teased its existence at the end of his fifth album, KOD. Since then, he’s released another album, The Off-Season, and shared his “to-do list” revealing a loose timeline of when fans can expect The Fall Off. However, he still has yet to provide a proper release date, preferring to bait fans with teasers and release rumors. But there are signs its coming; while on tour with Drake, J. Cole said the album is nearly nearly done, telling concertgoers, “Right now, I’m at the tail end of working on this album.”