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J. Cole has finally shared clips of his long-rumored collaborations with Kendrick Lamar from the early days of their respective careers.
On Monday, November 26, Cole and his manager Ibrahim "Ib" Hamad shared the latest episode of their "Inevitable" limited audio series. In "Who Dat," the Dreamville co-founders discuss their journey to create a smash hit before Cole dropped his Friday Night Lights mixtape. Later, the 39-year-old artist revisits his first studio session with K-Dot where concepts for songs like "Temptation" and "Shock The World" were born. Towards the end of the conversation, Cole debuts the CD-quality version of both tracks for the first time.
Day-one fans might remember the infamous video of Kendrick Lamar previewing both songs with J. Cole during a meet-and-greet over a decade ago. The songs were never officially released, but the previews alone were enough to spark public demand for a joint album between the two artists. In the episode, Cole rehashed the moment when he first met Lamar in 2010 during the XXL Freshman cover shoot and again at an album release party in Los Angeles.
At one point in time, Cole and K-Dot did connect for a session at No ID's studio. He recalls playing Dot songs like "HiiiPoWer," "Temptation" and other songs with one verse on it. Cole previously confirmed that they intended to make a collaborative project and even recorded songs for it. Unfortunately, the project never materialized due to their hectic schedules. During his appearance on Lil Yachty's A Safe Place podcast last year, the Grammy award winner described what happened with the album.
"Time and life," he said. "We ain’t ever got the chance to go in and do it correctly, because that would take time, bro. For us to do something that’s full of our potential, that meets our real potential, you’re gonna need time... At least a year."
Listen to the latest episode of J. Cole & Ib's "Inevitable" series here.