J. Cole has shared a new 90-minute conversation with Angie Martinez, his first video interview since releasing his KOD album. Ahead of Cole’s headline set at Rolling Loud Festival, they sat down at Salaam Remi’s studio house in Miami to talk about all things going on in his life. “I’m a dangerous interview because it’s hard for me to lie,” Cole said near the beginning of the interview. He wasn’t lying.
Cole addressed “False Prophets” for the first time, and went into detail about how it relates to Kanye West. Cole said he wrote the song while making observations on Yeezy before he had a breakdown, so it wasn’t like he was poking fun at him. He also spoke on Kanye tweeting a screenshot of their recent phone call. “I would’ve never posted that or tell him to post that,” he said. “That made me feel a certain type of way. I told him that. He apologized, for the record. I told him, ‘it felt like you just used my name in that very quick conversation for social media.'”
Suspicions were there already, but Cole confirmed that kiLL edward is in fact his alter ego. “I started feeling like [J. Cole] was a box,” he said. “I had told so much of my story from The Come Up, The Warm Up, Friday Night Lights, first album, Born Sinner, Forest Hills Drive — it was always about me, my aspirations, my goals, my dreams, my pains. I started feeling limited.” There’s also a full-length kiLL Edward project on the way.
With rumors constantly going around about a joint album with Kendrick Lamar, it was only right for Cole to address the topic, and ultimately shoot down hopes (for now, at least). “We just did a few songs. Like, we did a bunch of ideas. Put it like that. It was nothing like, you wouldn’t call it an album.” He continued, “It’s not like it’s something that’s actively happening. Not because it’s never gonna happen. Just because, like… it’s not right now, and I don’t like teasing or playing the game ’cause this has been going on for a minute.”
Check out the entire interview above, where he also talked about pre-show meditation, the genius of Young Thug, his upcoming album The Fall Off, loving SoundCloud Rappers and much more.
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