On the latest episode of his Inevitable audio series, J. Cole recalled how he felt after hearing Kendrick Lamar’s highly regarded sophomore album, Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, before its release, and the pressure he felt after it dropped.
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While conversing with his manager Ibrahim “Ib” Hamad, who played a couple more of Cole and Kendrick’s unreleased tracks, Cole talked about his studio sessions with the Cali-bred rapper, during which he got to preview GKMC.
According to the J. Cole, K. Dot had the album ready to go while the pair where in the middle of recording some of their collaborations in 2012, when Drake‘s Club Paradise Tour "came into town." For which Dot was among the opening acts.
“He came to Fayetteville and we worked on that studio bus for two or three days,” Cole recalled. “Before, I had sent him joints, but this was the first time we actually got to lock in and work on s***. And that s*** was so fun, dawg… It felt like when your cousin would come over to your house.”
“When Kendrick’s album dropped, the journey got harder, the mountain got steeper.” Describing it as similar feeling to when Drake’s So Far Gone mixtape dropped in 2009, “Where it was like, ‘Oh s***, there’s another person out there that has the same ambitions as me,’ it happened like that with Kendrick.”
“It was a feeling of surpassment,” he added, noting “it was two indicators that told me, his first-week numbers were more than mine. The other thing was we had a show where we were both on the same lineup… and I went before him and he went after me.”
J. Cole first opened the vault to his archived tracks on Inevitable’s fourth episode, playing two Kendrick collabs, “Shock the World” and “Temptation,” for the very first time. As for the latest tracks shared, both are untitled, but Cole did reveal one of the tracks was produced by D.C.-based rapper and producer Oddisee.
Listen to all previous and the latest episode of J.Cole’s Inevitable audio series — HERE.
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