J. Cole has finally released what he calls his “best project” on streaming services.
Following the the release of early mixtapes The Come Up and The Warm Up, Cole has now dropped the much-loved Friday Night Lights on DSPs such as Spotify and Apple Music for the first time.
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Announcing the release on Instagram, the North Carolina native wrote: “This is a very special moment for me. Been waiting patiently for this day, like a lot of yall have.
“I wanna say Thank you to everybody out there that kept these projects alive, even during all the years they were not on streaming services, especially this project right here. Friday Nights Lights finally available now on all platforms.”
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He added: “To have a full idea of what this means for me personally, you would have to know the whooole journey. This Inevitable series we doing, is that.”
The 19-track project was originally released for free in November 2010 and boasts appearances from Drake, Wale and fellow Dreamville rapper Omen.
J. Cole recently revealed that he considers Friday Night Lights to be his “best project.”
Appearing on Lil Yachty‘s A Safe Place podcast, he said: “Out of everything, [my best project] is probably neck and neck with Friday Night Lights and The Come Up, my first one. I don’t even know if people know about that shit. But I’ve recently went back and listen, that shit’s crazy. But that’s more like a true mixtape.”
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Cole fans have been treated to swathes of previously unreleased music of late as part of his Inevitable audio series, which finds him charting his career alongside longtime manager Ibrahim “Ib” Hamad and frequent collaborator Scott Lazer.
He recently shared two songs he made with Kendrick Lamar in 2010 that have never been properly released.
The episode found Cole detailing the background behind the collaborations, which are called “Temptation” and “Shock the World.”
“When I was out in L.A., [Kendrick] came by No ID‘s studio and I linked with him,” he said. “I played him the beat for ‘HiiiPoWeR,’ I played him ‘Temptation’ with my verse on it, I played him a couple of other joints that had one verse on it.
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“When I played them for him, I was like, ‘Bro, you can have these if you want.’ I remember he said — and it always stuck with me ’cause I had never heard nobody say this to me before — he was looking at me like, ‘N-gga, are you sure you want to give me these?!’
“I’m like, ‘Yeah, go ahead, take them.’ He was like, ‘Bro, you sleeping on yourself.’ It struck me because it was actually the stone cold truth of my reality at that time. I was so focused on getting this unicorn hit for my album that I was actually sleeping on the shit that I did well.”
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During that same episode, Cole also played a pair of never-before-heard songs he created with Pharrell that were intended for his debut album Cole World: The Sideline Story.
