It feels like a lifetime ago when J. Cole made “Work Out”. He’s not the kind of artist who typically makes the kind of rap songs you’d hear on the radio back in the day. But the Kanye-sampled hit song was his attempt at it, a far cry from the rise-and-grind everyman motivation on his mixtapes. At the time, he was desperate to give Jay-Z and his label Roc Nation any kind of hit. After tirelessly combing through songs, he finally landed on “Work Out”.
“One night I was in this hotel room after a show, and I was listening to College Dropout, as I do,” J. Cole told XXL (via HipHopDX). “And on the worst song on that album, which is my favorite album, so I’m not dissing. But on the worse song on that album, ‘Workout Plan’, I heard the s**t that I had been hearing for like—eight years now. I heard it different as a producer, like ‘oh s**t’…I made a rough version of the beat right there in the hotel room. By the time I got back to Europe a few days later, I had ‘Work Out’.”
Evidently, Cole landed the hit he was searching for. However, it came at a steep cost: his idol Nas absolutely hated it.
J. Cole Made a Hit Song That ‘Let Nas Down’
Cole told XXL that his go-to producer at the time, No ID, was extremely cold on the record. Moreover, when he was in the studio with Nas, he was similarly put off by “Work Out”. “To tell you the truth, I was in the studio with Nas, man, and that n***a was like ‘Yo, why the f**k that n***a make that shit? He don’t know he the one,’” J. Cole recalled No ID telling him. “I’m getting defensive, but really I was just hurt as a fan. I idolized that dude. I had his raps written on my walls.”
The North Carolina rapper held that heartbreak close for years, eventually turning the experience into “Let Nas Down” in 2013. One day in Houston, he ran into Nas at the airport and had to play him the song. Immediately, the Queens MC softened his heart and applauded J. Cole accordingly.
“I give him my headphones—I’m trying to hear what part of the song he’s on, ’cause he’s behind me. About a minute into the song, he’s just like, ‘whooo!’” Cole told BET (via XXL). “Beating my chair, just bangin my chair. Overall, he was wild; the look on his face was like, honored, honored that I would make that, and also highly impressed. So that was a huge moment for me.”
Photo by Johnny Nunez/WireImage
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