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J. Cole went down memory lane for the debut installment of his new audio series, “Inevitable,” which launched on Monday (Nov. 18) evening. During the nearly two-hour conversation with Ibrahim “Ib” Hamad and Scott Lazer, the “No Role Modelz” hitmaker discussed moving to New York City to pursue his dreams, releasing his first mixtape, The Come Up Mixtape Vol. 1 — fittingly, the episode’s title — as well as how Ye inspired him musically.
“I didn’t sell [any] drugs. It was nothing like my favorite rappers,” J. Cole said before naming Tupac Shakur and JAY-Z, the latter of whose Roc Nation he once signed to. The North Carolina-based artist went on to say, “I didn’t know how to talk about my life in a way that people could connect with, and then f**king Kanye West happened.”
“In the summer of 2003, before I went to college, the ‘Through The Wire’ video dropped, and that s**t changed my life. I became a massive Kanye fan,” he further detailed in an excerpt. “Kanye was the first time that I saw myself in somebody. He just made it possible to talk about your life or your regular-a** perspective in a way that’s appealing.”
The Dreamville Records founder’s praise came months after Ye took shots at him on a remix of Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That.” The Chicago lyricist spat, “Play J. Cole, get the p**sy dry / Play this s**t back 130 times.”
Ye’s issues with J. Cole seemingly stemmed from 2016’s “False Prophets,” which many speculated was about the Atlanta native. “Somebody told me it was halfway about me,” he said on Justin Laboy’s “The Download” podcast.
To coincide with the first episode of “Inevitable,” The Come Up Mixtape Vol. 1 hit DSPs after 17 years. The body of work is home to classics like “Dollar And A Dream,” “Dead Presidents” and “Simba.”