The Follow Up: J. Cole

It could be 1:45AM in Times Square. Possibly 2:00AM. No one’s looking for the time on their Blackberry’s, no yawning. Everyone at KMA studios is sitting in an awkward silence, shortly broken with a quiet “Wow.”

“I’ve been sitting on this track for months. I feel intimidated,” rapper J. Cole says. He’s at a table in front of a keyboard and a computer. The music gets louder as his head goes back and forth with the beat. As the song plays he says that he wants to write to this beat. He really wants to write to this beat. He admits he feels stuck, pressured by himself and friends. His hands are moving on the keyboard, speed heightened by the second. Visible focus.

There’s something on the table that looks like a leather diary. Bares the look of something important to someone, to a generation. In a gray Carolina sweatshirt, J. Cole gets up, grabs the leather book and enters the studio booth. The music blares.

We’re all on the other side of the booth. Listening to the words from the leather book. Needles piercing at our innermost feelings about relationships, love, work … and about balance. While J. Cole is rapping, his friends and business partners are reflecting, talking about their girlfriends, eyes filled with intensity. Maybe questioning actions from the past. Maybe wanting to do something different. There’s something about that moment. Witnessing an artist push himself to create – an artist creating – people reacting, turning inside themselves. It’s now, maybe, 3:30AM. And it is true: time doesn’t really matter around here.

The Roc Nation Deal.

It gets tougher. Some artists get a deal and put their feet up thinking they’ve made it. But that’s how you get caught up. A deal was never the goal for me, it was just a step. A hard step to get to, but never the end result. My end result is still much greater. I’m trying to be the fucking best. This isn’t the time to chill. It’s the time to go harder. Now the benefits of going harder seem so much easier than before when you were fighting for it. The word achievement hasn’t come to my mind. I still have so far to go.

Mental transition from an unsigned artist to signed artist.

About six or seven weeks went by between the first meeting and the actually signing. If I had got the job around the first meeting, I wouldn’t have known how to adjust. I still had a job in those weeks. I was able to see so much about the game in that time. It was a perfect transition where I was able to reflect about everything I wanted. I had time to get use to the thought of not going to work and working on music everyday simply because you can.

Warm Up!

I always told myself that you didn’t have to have a strong buzz to get a deal. I’m relying strictly on my talent. The Warm Up is a chance for people who are basically going to be like “Who the fuck is this kid?” “Who did Jay-Z sign?” I’m using the mixtape as a tool for them to get the story, so they’ll know about all the work I put in. It’s the story about the kid that got cut from the team, never made it, but he doesn’t quit. He goes out the next year, maybe he gets cut again. But he doesn’t quit. He goes out the final year and he makes it. That’s what happened to me.

Did you ever doubt your career as an artist because of hard-hitting times?

Things got hard but I knew. You couldn’t tell me shit. Yeah I’m broke, true. I have a degree, true. All my friends have jobs and I don’t. But I still know where I’m going to be. This is what kept me going: In my mind, I was always just one step away. Always so close even though I was actually really far. For the past three years, I’ve been thinking it was a month away. Every month. There never came a point where I thought it wasn’t. I never looked at it like I was failing. I was struggling for something I knew was coming. When you know you’re going to make it, when you know you’re destined for something and you believe in yourself, you have to keep telling yourself its coming. Or else you’ll start to doubt.

Many lack patience in life and in their careers. Were you always so patient?

Looking back, I had to be. There’s nothing that there’s no solution for. And it’s not that I never panic or I’m never angry. The things that cause people to panic, I don’t give thought to other than, I’ll deal with it later or something will work out. I won’t spend all day trying to think of a scheme. Let it work itself out. When my roommates moved out, I was in a huge apartment in Queens, New York, with no family and a job that barely pays. I was trying to chase a dream with a job where I’m barely able to pay for rent. I was in no position to move, so I had to find a way to pay the rent on my own, which was impossible. In two or three months, my boys from back home were like they were coming to New York. I had to struggle for a couple months and even considered going back to North Carolina to take some time and regroup. My landlord was the one telling me if I left, I wouldn’t come back, and that I wouldn’t make it. He’s the man.

Racing.

I always felt like I should have been signed from when I was really young. When it didn’t happen by 18, I started looking at my watch. When it didn’t happen by 21, I’m looking at my watch like, “Ok no later than 23”. I’m 24 now. I use to look at Tupac’s life and all he accomplished before he died at 25. I was 22 and wasn’t signed, 23 and wasn’t signed. When I finally realized there was no catching up to him it made me step back and say, “Yo, why would you want to catch up to him?” He lived his life and did what he was sent here to do; he did what he was destined to. I had to realize that I’m going to do what I’m destined to – there’s no time limit. Now I believe that everything truly happens at its right speed. There’s no longer a race.

A thing about fear.

My favorite basketball player, Penny Hardaway, came in the game as an incredible athlete. He was supposed to be the next Michael Jordan. He had a great career his first 4 or 5 years. I watched an interview two years ago where somebody asked him in maybe what was the second year of his career, “What’s your biggest fear?” He answered something along the lines of, my two biggest fears are that I’ll never win an NBA Championship and sometimes I have dreams where I have a career ending injury and I’m never the same player. Both those things happened to him. He basically spoke his fears into existence. Of course I have fears but I wouldn’t put them out like that or concentrate on them.

My story’s not the only one I’m trying to tell.

Every rapper is a liar in the history of rap. A storyteller. In rap, there’s always been a perception that you have to tell your story. I think my life is pretty interesting and I’m going to give you that. My story’s not the only one I’m trying to tell. I would like to tell you something about what I think is interesting.

What do you creatively want now?

I want to make a classic album. If I don’t sell two copies, I still want it to be a classic. In the meantime I want to set up a solid foundation of fans – and not just the Internet. The Internet can be deceiving. While it’s important, you can think you’re the man but when you’re album drops – nothing happens. I’d rather be one of those artists where people get up on how classic my album is like with Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt. You know how people always lie and act like they were up on it in ’96?

One thing you’d like to start doing before 25.

Appreciate more. Appreciate the positive, no dwelling on the negative. I’m not use to having my music on the Internet. So now when I read a post, I’ll read the comments. That’s something I need to stop doing. They’ll be a comment where someone will just get me and say something really amazing. Scroll two comments down and it’s something hateful.

To those who feel stuck creatively.

Try to remember the last time you made something that made you feel incredible. Zap yourself back. Relive that moment, the exact day, the exact night. When I made the music for “Lights Please,” that’s what I did. I told myself “I want to do this again, I going to make something classic.” When you know what it is you want, do it every day.

Read J. Cole’s first Let’s Just Eat Cheese interview here.