Everyone in hip-hop wants to be considered the best rapper alive. Lil Wayne spent his entire career vouching for that throne. The entire Kendrick Lamar/Drake feud is predicated on dismissing the ‘big 3’ notion. It’s not often you get a rapper who thinks, “I can name a lot of people better than me.” But not every rapper is J. Cole either.
During an episode of Wave Original 7PM in Brooklyn with Carmelo Anthony, cohost Kazeem Famuyide asked Cole a simple question: “Do you think you’re the best rapper alive?” First, the Dreamville MC stated that how he would answer in a song is very different from how he would answer in real life. On songs, J. Cole will cop to being the best in the world.
However, once he’s out of the booth, it’s an entirely different, more political answer. Moreover, he explicitly names several rappers who could rap better than him at any given moment. It’s not that he thinks they’re head and shoulders above him. Instead, he suggests that he’s not incapable of being beaten on a song by another artist.
J. Cole Shies Away From Being Labeled ‘The Best Rapper Alive’
“Bro, it’s a n***a named Black Thought that exists. It’s a n***a named Lupe Fiasco that exists. It’s n***as that on any given day, even my peers or Drake or Kendrick where it’s like, yo, I know on any given day I can show up to the studio, get these n***as 80, but I know they could show up on any day in the studio and give me 80 and I might only have 30… In reality, do I walk around this earth like there’s no n***a better than me in real life? No, n***a,” J. Cole explains on the podcast. “I can’t get in the studio with Black Thought and he just give me 90… and I’m sitting there like, I got 25 for you.”
This thinking can also apply to his albums as well. In one of the vlogs promoting his latest album, The Fall-Off, Cole described some of his earlier albums as just “lyrical exercise.” Everything he was doing after 2014 Forest Hills Drive was just practice for until he was ready to continue telling his story. He may still come back and make more music but it’ll likely fall into the same realm of exercise. “Ima rap probably, I’ll hop on a song probably, I might even f**k around if I get inspired enough, I may do an album,” J. Cole admitted. “But I don’t care to continue that story.”
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