J. Cole reflects on hearing Drake for the first time and how it influenced ‘The Warm Up’
J. Cole recently took the time to recall the first time he heard the music of Drake and the influence he had on J. Cole’s breakout mixtape The Warm Up.
Dreamville rapper J. Cole discussed the period he came across the music of Drake, and how was amazed by the fame he had on MySpace, in the second episode of his new audio series responding to Inevitable, which traces his entire career.
“It was one dude in particular that I remember seeing on MySpace, and he was this light-skinned R&B-looking n-gga, but he had raps,” he said. “It was kind of neo-soul-type raps, like on some Little Brother shit, but he was talking about women or something. The n-gga’s whole demeanor was hella smooth.
“But his plays were through the roof for a n-gga you’ve never heard of or has never been signed! I was like, ‘Who is this n-gga?! How does he have 20,000 plays in a day?!’”
He added: “Come to find out, a couple of years later, [Cole’s friend] Jessica Nabongo put me onto this song from this artist named Drake called ‘Sooner Than Later.’ I was like, ‘This shit is fucking amazing.’ N-gga, I played that shit back to back to back.
“Come to find out, the reason he had all of those plays was because he was already famous and I didn’t know that. He was already a n-gga that was popping off of Degrassi, but I didn’t know Degrassi and I didn’t know who he was.”
Recalling his reaction to Drizzy’s “Say What’s Real,” a freestyle over Kanye West‘s “Say You Will,” Cole said: “He fucking destroyed that shit. I was blown away at how much he bodied that fucking beat. I was like, ‘Yo, he’s fucking phenomenal.’”