J. Cole and Wiz Khalifa have joined forces for their first collaboration in 15 years on a remix of Cole’s latest single “cLOUDs.”
The two Blog Era stars dropped the track by surprise on Thursday (March 6) through Cole’s recently launched blog The Algorithm, with the Dreamville leader saluting the “wave” that the Taylor Gang chief has been on lately.
AD LOADING...
“Wiz skating. TGOD. And he been on a wave,” he wrote, referring to Wiz’s recent string of mixtapes and freestyles.
Cole also posted a link to Wiz’s “Jill Scott” collaboration with Premo Rice, Harry Fraud and Curren$y and commented: “Matter fact i heard this joint he’s on a couple months ago. Shout to TJ Warren who put me on.”
Wiz had hinted at jumping on a remix of “cLOUDs” earlier this month, writing on Instagram: “Cole asked me to do a verse on here I don’t know when he’s gonna drop it so I figured I’d let y’all get a sneak peek.”
The original song arrived on February 20 and found J. Cole addressing the attempted assassination of Donald Trump and the rise of artificial intelligence, among other topics.
AD LOADING...
“I’m that bass in your trunk, the bullet that missed Trump / The gun that jammed ’cause it seemed God had other plans,” he rapped, referencing the president’s shooting last summer.
The North Carolina native also lamented the current state of the world and pointed the finger at the ultra-rich: “Served on a plate with sirloin steak to billionaires who don’t care the world’s gon’ break / Long as they make money off it, pain brings profit.”
At the end of his second and final verse, Cole tackled A.I. and its threat to the creative arts.
“Don’t buy, subscribe so you can just stream your content / Like rent, you won’t own a thing / Before long, all the songs the whole world sings’ll be generated by latest of AI regimes / As all of our favorite artists erased by it scream / From the wayside, ‘Aye, whatever happened to human beings?’” he spit.
AD LOADING...
Cole also briefly explained how the track came together on his blog, writing: “Just wanted to share. made this a few days ago, then i added a second verse and was like ‘man I got a blog now, I can put whatever I want up there.’ I didn’t have a title 20 minutes ago when I decided to really put this up. But now I got one…”
“cLOUDs” was not received kindly by Freddie Gibbs, who appeared to take issue with the tough-talking track on social media.
AD LOADING...
In addition to posting a yawn emoji on X, he wrote on his Instagram Stories: “N-ggaz be rapping about how they kill rappers and kill they careers and blah blah blah but he backing outta rap beefs.”
Gibbs was seemingly alluding to Cole’s controversial apology to Kendrick Lamar for dissing him on “7 Minute Drill” last year.
