J Cole's Inevitable Episode 1 Highlights - "The Come Up"

• J. Cole said he started rapping in 7th grade and first realized he was good at rapping when he was out rapping dudes in their 20s when he was in his early teens

• He realized that his gift was relatability and not just storytelling because others were doing storytelling like Em & Nas but no one was talking about high school struggles like he was

• Said his voice was so high that people thought he was a girl on the phone

• He showed up to college with no money for a deposit, didn’t know what FAFSA was so the guy who drove him up to NY put the school deposit on his credit card

• He said “A Dollar & A Dream” came from his first opportunity to promote himself which was at NC A&T homecoming. He sold mixtapes for $1 (thought no one would paid money for it, but if it was free then people would take it and throw it away). “I know you not gonna throw a dollar on the ground”

J Cole's Inevitable Episode 2 Highlights - "Lights Please" (Part 1)

• Episode was titled ‘Lights Please’ and Cole called this “The song that changed my life.” Talked about coming up with the idea while in college, said he had to balance the partying with the work since he was still a regular college kid. He took one hit then forced himself to get in the lab and cook, and the rest is history.

• Came up with the idea for Dreamville in 2007, one of his homies was f***ing with it but Ib was like “I don’t know”. He ended up rolling with it cuz Cole liked it so much and it grew on him

• Recounted the famous “waited outside the studio for Hov with a CD” story. Talked about how they thought it was gonna be this magical start to his career but Jay-Z wasn’t interested and told them to give the tape to his assistant, which did help get some connections (though they were extremely disappointed at the time).

• Talked about getting “wined and dined” by G-Unit Hov at 50’s crib and met Tony Yayo (50 wasn’t there). Cole said he and Ib used to split drinks at the club since they couldn’t afford their own but at 50’s, they were given individual bottles and they couldn’t believe it

• Cole started getting meetings with big time executives like Chris Lighty and Paul Rosenberg. Wasn’t signed yet but felt the “momentum”

• Cole & Ib found Drake on MySpace, said he was an R&B looking dude. Talked about Drake having hella plays without being signed yet cuz he was on Degrassi (they didn’t know this at the time). Said he was “fcking amazing”

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I already purchased the podcast couple days ago but appreciate the summaries still

J Cole's Inevitable Episode 2 Highlights - "Lights Please" (Part 2)

• Cole talked about getting paid $1,000 for a show in LA, was gassed to actually get paid (would’ve done it for free), then realized after airfare and hotels it was basically a wash

• They reminisced about celebrating in the streets the night Obama got elected, & the New Yorker published photos from that night. Cole, Ib & Bas were photographed for an article in the magazine. He was still broke and wasn’t signed at the time, but his mom saw the pic in the mag and said “The camera loves you.” She saw the vision

• Talked about finally meeting Jay-Z. Said the conversation was long and Hov never rushed him. He played Lights Please, Lost Ones and a couple other joints, and Hov praised his songwriting. He asked Jay how he brought all his homies along with him (thinking about how many guys he wanted to put on) and Hov said “You can’t bring everyone.” The meeting went amazing but they didn’t hear anything for a bit

• Then, Cole talked about getting the email that he was getting signed while driving. Called someone to tell them and got pulled over for using his phone while driving. Same story he referenced on Interlude from Sideline Story “God knew exactly what I wanted for my career, and the only way I was going to get there, was through this vessel - through Jay.”

• Cole talked about how he felt he offered something different to the game, this relatability factor he came with. When he heard Drake, he realized Drake could fit into that same lane and he felt competitive to shift his mindset. “Drake just changed the game with a fckn mixtape.” ‘The Warm Up’ couldn’t just be just an appetizer, it had to be the main course and they had to put “bigger guns” on it

J Cole's Inevitable Episode 3 Highlights - "The Warm Up" (Part 1)

• In this episode, Cole talks about what life was like when he was first signed, making ‘A Star Is Born’ with Hov and working with No ID

• At first, no one knew he signed to Jay-Z until he announced it during a freestyle on DJ Green Lantern’s show. Cole said he had “anxiety” to announce it and then the second he started rapping the freestyle, it was like “I’m home”

• Said his advance was $75k, started an account at the bank right outside the Roc Nation building that same day to deposit. Said it felt like a lot at the time, but after taxes and paying all his people, he still didn’t have much money

• Roc Nation was so new at the time that Cole & Ib weren’t even sure if Hov/the label knew they were making ‘The Warm Up’ or when it dropped. Rich Kleiman (A&R) supposedly told Jay-Z: “Did you know your man made a classic?”

• Cole says that he studies screenplay writing (and that it’s a dream of his to one day maybe write a screenplay). Said that while some screenwriters say you need to have an outline before you start the script, Tarantino has said sometimes he jumps in without knowing what will happen later on. Cole said he does a bit of both and ‘Dreams’ is an example of him having the first line but not knowing where he’ll end up

J Cole's Inevitable Episode 3 Highlights - "The Warm Up" (Part 2)

• Ib says he thinks Cole could be even bigger than he is now, but he places a strong emphasis on living life outside of the fame and music. Cole says he is grateful it felt like he lived a full life (as far as going through challenges in life beyond music) before he got money because he stayed the same person once he got that fame. Ib says the biggest thing Cole brings is the “emotional connection” and it comes from those life experiences.

• They talked about the experience of mixing The Warm Up and how long it took (said they were in the studio for days on end). This was a new experience because on The Come Up, there wasn’t really much mixing Cole just recorded and bam that was that.

• They said they were so behind on mixing that at some point, their engineer became delirious and the mixes sounded worse than the original. The version of ‘I Get Up’ that got released is the original mix.

• Cole handed out CD’s of The Warm Up at the release party, and he said people were saying they hadn’t seen that before but to him he hadn’t made it yet and so he felt like he was still at A&T Homecoming selling The Come Up for $1.

• Cole opened up for Wale for his first shows after signing to Jay.

• He talked about getting the call that Hov wanted to do a song with him, and he pulled up to Rock the Mic studio (same one he waited outside for to hand Jay ‘The Come Up’) and said Beyoncé, Hov & Guru were all in the studio when he got there. Cole said it was “surreal”.

J Cole's Inevitable Episode 3 Highlights - "The Warm Up" (Part 3)

• Cole & Ib said Jay-Z played them songs off The Blueprint III, and how they all sounded fire but they didn’t know if they were actually fire or if they were just hyped to be there, Cole said if it’s someone’s first time in the studio, take their opinion with a grain of salt bc you might just be a fan of the moment and not necessarily the music.

• Then, Cole talked about making ‘A Star is Born’ with Jay-Z. Hov played him his verses, then looked over at Cole almost as if to say “start writing.” Cole said he was prepared for this moment because the years of hard work and honing his craft had gotten him ready for this. Said the lyrics were “coming out without me knowing” because his “pen was ready”.

• Hov was reacting crazy to Cole’s verse, played it back over and over. Ib said he had seen ‘Fade to Black’ (Jay-Z doc from 2004) and he knew those reactions so he knew they were good. Jay said “Hold up now we gotta see if my A&R likes it” and he brought Beyoncé back in. She went crazy, asked them to play it again and Ib & Cole said it felt like a ‘fantasy’.

J Cole's Inevitable Episode 3 Highlights - "The Warm Up" (Part 4)

• From there, Cole started working with No ID, who went on to become this sort of mentor for Cole. He taught Cole a lot about how the industry works, things Cole had never seen before and made him think about things he hadn’t thought of before. However, Cole said some of the things he was learning made him doubt himself. He had pressure to make hits and didn’t know if his own sht (plays ‘Before I’m Gone’ from FNL) was good or not.

• They played a track called ‘Not Too Late’ which Cole cuts off and says is “trash,” then says it was the prime example of overthinking and trying to chase a hit. Pressure coming from the label and said everyone at this time had to have a single.

• Cole said the reason why ‘Stay’ ended up on Nas’s ‘Life Is Good’ and never made a Cole album (it’s on the ‘Truly Yours’ 1 mixtape) is because J. Cole didn’t pay for the beat and No ID sent it to Nas. Cole and No ID cooked up the beat (with live musicians), but Cole had no idea he had to pay for it to basically lock it down because he had never paid for a beat before. He said someone from Roc Nation told No ID Cole was passing and it went to Nas.

• At this time, Cole became split in his direction between what he wanted to make (think FNL) and what the industry expectations were for him (think Sideline Story).

It’s worth paying $10 for anyway so many interesting tidbits

J Cole's Inevitable Episode 4 Highlights - "Who Dat" (Part 1)

• This episode talks about the label needing a commercial hit, and Cole obsessing over what would be his “single”

• After ‘The Warm Up’ dropped, the buzz around J. Cole started to grow and the label demanded a hit single

• Cole and Ib say that ‘Who Dat’ was their first “successful” attempt at a single because they had tried before but they never succeeded

• Talked about the Blueprint III tour, which was Cole’s first tour and he wasn’t even on the lineup. The tickets said show started at 8 and Cole was on from 7:50-8pm

• They were on the tour bus with Wale when ‘Attention Deficit’ dropped. The numbers were disappointing, and Cole said it was an example of a label mismanaging an artist’s career for pushing him to drop ‘Chillin’ with Lady Gaga as the lead single vs. something more “authentic” to Wale’s brand. Cole said he saw the emotional affects being on the tour bus with him and it was a “tough time”

• Every night on tour, Cole watched Jay-Z’s set from the side. Said it fueled his hunger and showed him what it would take to get to the top

• Cole remembers always wanting to make classics, his own Illmatic. But when Hov was going out there to his hits and seeing how people reacted, it inspired Cole to want to make a hit for the first time

• The way they described tour was that “no one knew who Cole was.” One time, they announced him as J. Scott

J Cole's Inevitable Episode 4 Highlights - "Who Dat" (Part 2)

• Cole recalled college shows opening up for Talib Kweli and Jeezy. Said he thought it was dope how they were both 2 different crowds, passionate fans but he didn’t want to go the Talib Kweli route where it wasn’t any hits. He loved the energy that Jeezy brought and how the crowd reacted to those hits. Wanted to find that balance of classics and anthems to play live.

• Ib talked about being so inexperienced at being Cole’s DJ that one time he accidentally played ‘Last Call’ when it was supposed to be ‘Dead Presidents’.

• Cole recounts telling Rich Kleiman (liaison to Roc Nation) that he doesn’t want to make hits he wants to make classics. It gets back to Jay-Z, which pisses Hov off and he says “What are we doing here?” if Cole is not going to make hits and recoup the label’s investment. Rich Kleiman gave Cole advice that he keeps with him to this day: “In life, sometimes you have to play the game to change the game”.

• So Cole’s new approach was, how can I please the label while not letting too much of myself go and not go against my beliefs?

• Links with Pharrell to show the label that he’s willing to try (to make hits).

• Cole played a couple joints he made with Pharrell (they honestly don’t sound that bad) but the creative elements that came from those sessions were squashed by the need for a hit. The songs didn’t get finished.

J Cole's Inevitable Episode 4 Highlights - "Who Dat" (Part 3)

• They talked about ‘Who Dat’ being Cole’s first real single. There’s a line on the track about trial and error and Cole said that exemplified this whole experience for him, trying to catch a hit. While it wasn’t necessarily a hit — Jay-Z said the beat was hard but it was not a hit record (no melody), at least it “struck a nerve” and Cole became the ‘Who Dat’ guy, allowed he and Ib to do radio promo.

• Radio ppl told him ‘Who Dat’ is good but I’m not playing it too much because by their metrics (people switching the station when it comes on, surveys) they didn’t love it BUT some really liked it and showed love. Gave him relationships for a long time since he was nice to them and sometimes those relationships can be make or break.

• Cole became obsessed with what was a hit and what wasn’t. Everything was reaching. Sht started to not be fun.

• He brought ‘Higher’ and ‘Blow Up’ to Jay-Z thinking he got one. Jay said both times that they were “close” but not quite there yet. It was super deflating to Cole.

• Reminisced about meeting Kendrick at the 2010 XXL Cover shoot (Kenny was w/Jay Rock). Said Kendrick was hard and that they were mutual fans of each other. They stayed in touch for years and Cole would send him beats.

J Cole's Inevitable Episode 4 Highlights - "Who Dat" (Part 4)

• Kendrick helped Cole realize he was “sleeping on himself.” Said “are you sure you want to give these away?” In reference to the ‘Hiipower’ and ‘Temptation’ beats. This meant a lot to Cole bc he was still obsessed with finding the single that he didn’t give himself enough credit.

• Played Jay-Z ‘Can’t Get Enough.’ At first, Hov loved it. Unfortunately, over time, Jay said it wasn’t good enough and it was back to the drawing board.

• At this point, Cole and Ib thought sht was getting quiet and Cole felt like he needed to come back with something extra special. It had been over a year since ‘The Warm Up’ dropped and he was so focused on the hit that he didn’t really have material for the album. So he dug deep and the next project he would put out was ‘Friday Night Lights’

J Cole's Inevitable Episode 5 Highlights - "Friday Night Lights" (Part 1)

• This episode talks about Cole’s mixtape, ‘Friday Night Lights,’ and how it came about, with a couple highlights being how he got onto ‘Looking for Trouble’ with Ye and how he got connected to Drake.

• Cole had some great songs already finished but didn’t know what to do with them (like ‘Higher,’ ‘Back to the Topic,’ ‘Farewell’). He decided to put them together on a mixtape and gain some momentum (things were getting quiet since ‘The Warm Up’)

• Ib recalls finding a crumpled up piece of paper in the car that had one of the verses from ‘Farewell’ (which J. Cole hadn’t recorded yet). Imagine if they lost that paper. Cole was like “ah sht I was looking for that”.

• On ‘Villematic’: Ye dropped ‘Devil In A New Dress’ as a Good Friday drop without Ross’s verse. Cole and Ib heard it and loved it. Cole wrote ‘Villematic’ to the beat, recorded, and put it out the same night. Said that was part of the magic of the Blog Era that if you wanted to put something out, you could just put it out without needing to go through all these hoops.

• Cole said since he was only a year removed from being a regular guy (he had only been signed for about a year), some of the moves he made he thought to himself what would excite me as a fan — such as dropping Villematic at 2 or 3 in the morning and fans waking up to new music.

• Cole apologized for the “Talk is cheap, it’s like I grew up in a Jewish home” line saying he didn’t think anything of it at the time and that he needs to peace it up with his Jewish brethren. Knows now he wouldn’t say anything like that today. Also said one time Drake was DJing and played this track, and when this line came up he looked at Cole and laughed

Cole's Inevitable Episode 5 Highlights - "Friday Night Lights" (Part 2)

• Cole said he always wanted to be on a peer to peer level with Jay-Z, and not like the little brother. Said Hov loved ‘Villematic’ and when he saw him backstage at a show Jay shouted that specific song out.

• At this point, Cole had no idea how big he was. It was about a year out from ‘The Warm Up’ and he was about to do his first overseas show. He played at Wireless in London. Before the show, the crowd was chanting his name and he was shocked at the amount of support he was getting. Thought no one would know his songs yet everyone knew his tracks word for word. Jay even texted him to congratulate him cuz he had seen the footage from the show.

• But Cole said at this time there were highs and lows. He had the crazy show at Wireless but then did a show in Paris the next day and it was empty.

• At this time, they were releasing some of the songs from FNL as loosies, still unsure of what they were gonna do with the project (FNL hadn’t come to life yet). Drake reaches out after hearing ‘In The Morning’ (Cole described Drake as an aficionado and always tapped in) and says he “sent his producers home” bc the beat was so hard. Cole extends the offer to hop on the track and says he’ll take off one of his verses. Drake appears to be interested.

• Cole did a tour sponsored by BET and added onto the ‘FNL’ loosies at the same time, fleshing them out into a more complete project.

• At the ATL stop, he specifically remembers adding 2nd verses amongst other things at the Tree Sound Studios, where he would work with several producers on Revenge of the Dreamers in the future. Waiting for Drake to send the verse back for ‘In The Morning’.

Cole's Inevitable Episode 5 Highlights - "Friday Night Lights" (Part 3)

• Kanye was gearing up to drop ‘MBDTF’ at this time. During a promo stream (they can’t remember the exact platform this was on, they think it was a radio show), someone on the show asked Ye if he would ever work with J. Cole. He essentially said maybe, and that there might be a ‘Good Friday’ joint he could throw Cole on. Cole & Ib took his response as dismissive (he didn’t sound too enthusiastic), however, one Wednesday out of the blue Ye called Cole up and followed through on his answer asking Cole if he’d hop on ‘Looking for Trouble.’

• Ib says he thinks Kanye, being the smart businessman and taking advantage of the moment, may not have had Cole on his radar at the time when he was asked the question, but then he probably realized Cole was up and coming and that this could add to the buzz for the album.

• So at first Cole is like I’m on tour…I can’t knock this verse out in ~48 hours. Ye responds with some veteran wisdom and says something along the lines of “you know, I’m sure another artist would be dying to be on this song and if I were you, I would make it happen.” That motivates Cole and he finds the closest studio near him. He writes the verse in the car ride over. Ye sent him the instrumental and didn’t say who else was on the song.

Cole's Inevitable Episode 5 Highlights - "Friday Night Lights" (Part 4)

• If you listen to the opening lines on the song, they are in direct response to feeling dismissed by Kanye on the radio show in their interaction before Cole got the call: “Make way for the chosen one / What you now hear is puttin fear in all the older ones / Downplayed me to downgrade me like they didn’t notice him”.

• Cole also thinks Ye “nudged” the vocals so that it doesn’t sound as smooth as it did when he recorded it. However, Kanye told Cole he loved the verse and that he even had to add his own verse after hearing it. Cole & Ib both remark how cool it was that Ye put his verse last and that the other verses were great too.

• Cole calls this ‘Looking for Trouble’ verse the culmination of what they were going through, feeling like he’d been counted out and feeling like he was treading water. Back against the wall.

• They dropped ‘Friday Night Lights’ a week later. They had to call Drake up and be like yo, we need the verse tonight (for ‘In The Morning’). Drake was like I lost my voice, but I can try. He sends it in and the scratchiness of his voice adds to the atmosphere of the song. Cole says Drake “murdered his verse”.

• Cole says of FNL: “This was a tool to keep me going. It was such a wave. I had never felt a wave like that before” but his mind was still thinking about how he had to put out the album and he didn’t appreciate the FNL moment at the time.

Damn shoutout to the homie @Silas

My man

Cole's Inevitable Episode 5 Highlights - "Friday Night Lights" (Part 5)

• They recall again how the tour was up and down. Boulder, CO was the next stop and tickets weren’t selling well. FNL drops, and the next day, the show was sold out. The rest of the tour sold out as well after FNL. They said the energy was crazy, and the Boulder show felt like a festival.

• Cole talked about how Ib was really good about making sure he didn’t waste any good verses. Said on ‘Enchanted,’ Cole was looking for one more verse and Ib pulled one from a while back and was like what about this? Said it fit perfectly.

• They both say ‘2Face’ is an all time Cole song. Called it a sacrifice to not put it on the album, but they had to keep it pushing and keep the momentum going.

• Cole & Ib talked about the “life bars” on the mixtape like “keep grindin' boy, your life can change in one year” from ‘Premeditated Murder.’ Said the pro basketball players Cole hooped with in Canada (2022) were even quoting those type of bars in their captions. Not necessarily punchlines just relatable bars that inspired hope and stuck with a lot of people. Just one of the many things that made FNL special

• Cole’s closing thoughts on ‘Friday Night Lights:’

“We put a lot of thought and time and strategy into making this flow like an album.” Emphasizes the sequencing, and again shouts out Drake for changing the game with ‘So Far Gone’ how he dropped a mixtape that was a complete body of work. Cole is super grateful for FNL, and they tease the next period for Cole (his debut album), which they describe as some of the darkest times.

I was at that Boulder show

Cole's Inevitable Episode 6 Highlights - "Sideline Story" (Part 1)

• This episode talks about the creation of Cole’s debut album, ‘Sideline Story,’ and how it didn’t go quite how J. Cole & Ib imagined it would.

• Coming off of ‘Friday Night Lights,’ the energy from Jay and the label was still “where’s the single. I need a single.” Cole hadn’t even talked to Hov about FNL.

• One day, Jay-Z sits down with Cole and says something that Cole finds heartbreaking and nearly brings him to tears. Hov says that he doesn’t think Cole is capable of producing a hit on his own and that he needs to lock in with a popping producer that can maybe bring it out of him. Cole says “nah” but begrudgingly does so after Mark Pitts calls him up and tells him to play the game.

• Cole recalls getting in the studio with Stargate, a Norwegian producer duo behind the recent massive success of ‘Black & Yellow.’ He didn’t put out any records he made with them and just said his heart wasn’t in it and that he didn’t want to be there.

• Cole called this period of his music career “embarrassing” as he continues to reach for a hit. Cole & Ib played one song then laughed at how bad it is.

• Cole talked about feeling like the only one of the next gen of rappers — Drake, Wiz Khalifa, Wale, etc— who hadn’t dropped an album yet. Pressure is on.

Cole's Inevitable Episode 6 Highlights - "Sideline Story" (Part 2)

• At Jay-Z & Lebron’s annual “Two Kings” dinner, Cole was talking to Drake and Drake’s manager and Hov came up to them saying “Yo get him one!” talking to Drake in reference to Cole, basically saying “Get him a hit.” Cole & Ib both felt extremely embarrassed.

• At the after party for the Two Kings dinner, Cole went up to Jay off the Hennessy lol and Jay again said “I just need one!” Cole got super bold and said “When you were making Reasonable Doubt, did you have someone in your ear asking you for a hit?” Hov said something along the lines of “I respect that, you’re right.” And then never bothered Cole about it again. Ib said when he saw Cole go up to Jay his first thought was “We’re getting dropped”.

• Cole said the difference between ‘Work Out’ and the other single attempts he had was that Work Out came organically. He said he was “Moved by the spirit” of the sample (was listening to ‘New Workout Plan’ by Ye and it just came to him). He wasn’t thinking about making a hit, just listening to music he loved.

• After making ‘Work Out,’ Cole knew he got one but he had a studio session with songwriter Sean Garrett before he could even tell Jay about the song. In that session, Cole freestyled and his heart wasn’t really in it cuz he was thinking about how he had just “cracked the code” with ‘Work Out.’

appreciate this

Preciate this, just started listening last night