Key Insights
- Rumor Clarification: J. Cole stated that Drake initially wanted Kendrick Lamar, not him, for “First Person Shooter.”
- Pressure to Perform: Cole felt significant pressure when writing his verse for the track.
- Festival Plans: J. Cole had intended to bring both Kendrick and Drake to the 2024 Dreamville Festival.
- Respectful Absence: Drake chose not to attend the festival to avoid putting Cole in an uncomfortable situation.
J. Cole has set the record straight on the rumor that Drake originally wanted both him and Kendrick Lamar on “First Person Shooter.”
The Dreamville rapper addressed the speculation on Carmelo Anthony’s 7PM In Brooklyn podcast as part of his press run to promote The Fall-Off, revealing that Drizzy initially asked Dot, not him, to jump on the chart-topping track.
“So, I’m not gonna say we were all supposed to be [on the song]. How it came to me was, before that beat ever made it to me, I think Drake wanted that to be a him and [Kendrick] song,” he explained.
Cole then implied that Kendrick snubbed Drake’s request, saying: “My interpretation is like… maybe when it wasn’t moving fast enough or he wasn’t getting the response he wanted, maybe he was like, ‘Let me hit Cole.’ ‘Cause I think Boi-1da was pushing him like, ‘Bro, you need to hit Cole.’
“I never looked at that song like it was going to be all of us. I thought it was me and Drake. And I just had the beat; there was nothing on it. And I felt mad pressure ’cause I wanted to come through for him. I had to write that verse several times.”
J. Cole also revealed that he was planning on bringing both Kendrick Lamar and Drake out at 2024 Dreamville Festival — until their long-simmering beef boiled over.
“[Drake] was supposed to be at Dreamville Fest. That was planned. He didn’t come. Thank God he didn’t come, though — no disrespect to Drake, I love Drake — but had he come, I would have felt more pressure to be on stage representing that energy,” he said, referring to his Kendrick diss song “7 Minute Drill” for which he apologized at said festival.
“I was trying to get Kendrick to come, too. That was my plan for Dreamville Fest that year. Mind you, I never got a chance to [ask Kendrick]. I told Drake. Drake knew that that was something that I wanted to happen. When we were on tour I was like, ‘Yo, it’d be crazy if both of y’all came out at Dreamville Fest.’ It’s silly now to say. It’s like, ‘Nah, n*gga! There were other plans in the works.’”
There were rumors that Drake’s absence at Dreamville Festival was due to a disagreement with Cole, but as the North Carolina native clarified, it was because Drizzy didn’t want to put him in an awkward position.
“He could tell, when me and him talked, that my heart wasn’t equivalent to his. So he was like, ‘Yo, I didn’t want to come down there and put you in a situation on that stage and say some shit that you would have to stand behind,’” Cole recalled. “And I was like, ‘Thank you!’ Because it left the space for me to [do] what I was supposed to do.”
J. Cole’s involvement in Kendrick and Drake’s highly-publicized battle has been a major talking point throughout his recent press run.
In an interview with Cam’ron, he admitted that he only released “7 Minute Drill” because he felt pressurized to respond to Kendrick’s “Like That” verse and didn’t want to let it overshadow the rollout for The Fall-Off, which he was planning to drop in 2024.
“There wasn’t any disrespect in [Kendrick’s verse]!” Cole said. “My feeling was, ‘Fuck!’ Because now I know this [album] that I’ve been working on for eight years, plus this other [mixtape, Might Delete Later] that I did as a set-up, n*ggas ain’t gonna never let me put that out until I address this.”
He added: “There was no malice in my heart … I [was] like, ‘Let me say just enough to where it looks like I said something.’ Everything I’m saying, I know and he knows, it’s all survivable. I’m not hitting him with no fatal blows.”
