J. Cole Admits To Taking Shots At Kanye West On His Own Song Over 'Dismissive' Comment

J. Cole has revealed that he was taking direct shots at Kanye West on “Looking For Trouble” in response to what he felt was a disrespectful remark.

During the latest episode of his Inevitable audio series, the Dreamville rapper spoke about the making of their 2010 G.O.O.D. Fridays collaboration and the tension (which may well have been one-sided) leading up to it.

Cole began by recalling Kanye hosting a UStream before the release of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and being asked by a viewer if he had any plans to work with the then-rising Roc Nation signee.

Cole’s initial excitement at realizing Ye — one of his favorite artists at the time — knew who he was was soon dampened by his answer, though.

“Kanye’s answer was, like — I don’t think anybody watching it would notice, but me being me, I looked at him like, ‘Aw, that shit was hella dismissive,'” he said.

“He said, ‘I mean, we might put him on one of the G.O.O.D. Fridays or something.’ It was like a, ‘Yes, but.’ He’s not a n-gga that I would [feature on my album] […] If he would’ve been like, ‘Yeah, it would be fire to put him on a G.O.O.D. Friday [song]’ it would have been a different feeling.”

Shortly afterwards, Kanye West phoned J. Cole and asked him to record a verse for his now-legendary G.O.O.D. Fridays series, but Cole, who was on tour in Michigan at the time, initially declined due to time constraints.

“I’m genuinely like, ‘Damn, bro, I appreciate it. But yo, I’m on this tour. I can’t. I’m in fucking Michigan and I’m not gonna be able to make it,'” he remembered. “Mind you, it was due Friday and this is Wednesday afternoon.

“[Kanye] was like, ‘I asked such and such and they make it happen.’ It was a polite flex of like, ‘I think you can make this happen.’ It made me be like, ‘Alright, yeah, how can I make it happen?'”

Cole said he drove roughly two hours to a studio in Detroit to record his verse, writing his rhymes on the journey.

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“Mind you, I didn’t have nobody’s verse. The n-gga just sent me the beat. I didn’t know what the fuck the song was!” he added.

The Off-Season MC then broke down his “Looking For Trouble” verse and confirmed that he was jabbing Kanye on the song for his “dismissive” UStream comments.

“‘Cole World, 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 don’t notice him / Your shoes too big to fill? I can barely squeeze my toes in ‘em,’” he said, reciting his opening bars.

“The world has never known that. Those were direct shots [at Kanye] because days prior I had seen the n-gga be like, ‘Ah, we might put him on a G.O.O.D. Friday song or something.’ […] And those are shots I know only [Kanye] would feel.”

After Cole sent his verse back, Ye responded enthusiastically. Cole’s longtime manager Ibrahim “Ib” Hamad remembered the Chicago rap legend messaging them: “Yo, you killed it! I had to throw a couple bars on there so we could have that moment.”

“Which was love!” Cole acknowledged, adding that Kanye originally only had four bars on “Looking For Trouble.”

After hearing the final version of the song, however, Cole’s sourness towards his Hip Hop hero crept back in. He felt that his verse was “sabotaged” during the mixing process due to his vocals being “nudged” off beat.

“I felt like it was on some lowkey spiteful shit, but I could be completely misinterpreting it. But what definitely happened was — and I was pissed — these n-ggas nudged my vocals,” he explained. “The only reason I didn’t flip is because the verse was well received. This verse was a moment.”

He added: “It’s not wild offbeat, but when you nudge it, it’s slight. It just makes you sound either early or late. It made my flow sound stiff. When I hear this verse, this is not how I recorded it. I recorded it loose, free, but they nudged it and made my shit sound too perfect and stiff.”

Cole acknowledged that it may have been a producer or engineer, not necessarily Kanye, “but in the context of everything, I was already on some shit like, ‘Yo, this is some weird shit going on.’ I felt it was on some sabotage shit.”

J. Cole and Kanye West have yet to work together since “Looking For Trouble” and their relationship has remained complicated.

Cole famously dissed Ye on the 2016 song “False Prophets” and appeared to throw more shots at him on his 2019 hit “Middle Child.”

Kanye later demanded a “public apology” from the North Carolina native, alluding to his lyrical darts.

The G.O.O.D. Music founder then went on the offense earlier this year, dissing Cole on his remix of Future, Metro Boomin and Kendrick Lamar’s “Like That” while also disparaging the Dreamville boss for backing out of his battle with Kendrick.