J. Cole‘s new audio series Inevitable is only one episode in, but it’s already shedding new light on the rapper’s extensive catalog — including 2014 Forest Hills Drive favorite “Wet Dreamz.”
In the show’s debut episode, Cole recalled feeling towards the end of 2006 that mixtapes were getting “corny” and “watered down” because “everybody had one.”
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“So I was genuinely like, ‘I’m not doing no fucking mixtapes. I’m not wasting this music I got,'” he continued. “I had album songs in me.”
One of the “album songs” from that period, he said, was “Wet Dreamz.”
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“Why would I waste this fucking song [on a mixtape]?” he remembered thinking. “At that moment right there, I had ‘Wet Dreamz.’ I didn’t put out ‘Wet Dreamz’ until [2014] Forest Hills Drive, which was eight years [later].”
Check the moment out below.
J. Cole originally made “Wet Dreamz” in late 2006, but didn’t release it until 2014 😳 pic.twitter.com/ZLfok7LV0F
— Team DREAMVILLE (@TeamDreamville) November 19, 2024
Cole’s instinct to wait paid off. “Wet Dreamz” made it to the Billboard Hot 100 upon release, and is quadruple platinum.
Elsewhere in the episode, the Dreamville rapper reflected on the profound impact that Kanye West had on him when he was still honing his craft.
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“I was an aggressive battle rapper that had bars and I was a storyteller of fantasy, like ‘The Storm’ — completely made-up scenarios. I had that, but my life was actually hella regular,” he said.
“I didn’t sell no drugs, it was nothing like my favorite rappers. It was nothing like JAY-Z‘s life, it was nothing like what ‘Pac‘s life appeared to be. There was nothing gangster about it. I didn’t know how to talk about my life in a way that people could connect with. And then fucking Kanye West happened.”
Cole went on to credit Ye with helping him drop the façade and embrace his true personality in his music.
“In the summer of 2003 before I went to college, the ‘Through the Wire’ video dropped — and that shit changed my life,” he continued. “I became a massive Kanye fan. Kanye was the first time that I saw myself in somebody. He just made it possible to talk about your life or your regular-ass perspective in a way that’s appealing.
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“This n-gga became my favorite artist at that point. He kinda cracked my mind open.”
