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J. Cole pulled up on Cam’ron’s Talk With Flee this week, where he revealed that Kendrick Lamar originally had a pair of features on an earlier version of The Fall-Off. Unfortunately, Cole pivoted after the tracks were leaked.
“I had The Fall-Off finished. I probably had to tweak a couple of mixes,” Cole said. “At that time, I had been working on The Fall-Off, which was done, and by the way, somebody leaked it. I know who leaked it — it’s cool he put it out there. [Kendrick] was on two joints.”
When The Fall-Off ultimately arrived in February, Kendrick was nowhere to be found on the double-disc album. It’s unclear if this had anything to do with Cole and Lamar’s brief feud in April 2024, which the Dreamville boss walked back and apologized for dissing K. Dot on Might Delete Later closer “7 Minute Drill.”
Cole may provide more detail on the matter when the full interview with Cam’ron is released on YouTube on Wednesday at 5 p.m. ET.
Digging a bit deeper, before The Fall-Off‘s arrival, J. Cole explained that he felt re-energized creatively after sidstepping the Lamar feud, which led to him recording the second part of the double-disc.
“2 years ago, after the events that still feed the algorithm to this day, I became incredibly re-inspired, and the album slowly blossomed into a double disc as the concept expanded. I felt there should be an additional cover that represented that,” Cole wrote in a February IG post. “Something just as strong as the first, with my face on it, so when I look back in 20 years, I can see an image of who I was at the time I released the project I worked on for so long.”
In the past, Cole and Kendrick have teamed up on tracks like “Forbidden Fruit” and Jeezy’s “American Dream.” J. Cole actually played a pair of unreleased collabs with Lamar on his Inevitable audio series in late 2024, but they were recorded circa 2010.
Elsewhere in the interview, just prior to revealing the scrapped Lamar verses, Cole shared his initial reaction and swing of emotions to hearing Kendrick’s explosive verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That” in March 2024, which lit the fuse and saw him essentially call out Drake and Cole in a response to their Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit “First Person Shooter.”
“My first reaction is that sh– is hard. It’s a hard a– verse, undeniable,” he said. “The beat crazy, the song is ill. He went crazy. That’s my first reaction because I don’t know what I’m necessarily listening for.
Cole explained how that quickly changed. “My second reaction is not now, ” he added. “This is inconvenient for me. Right at that time, I had just got off tour with Drake and I had Might Delete Later in the chamber.”
J. Cole then responded to Lamar with the aforementioned “7 Minute Drill,” which he scrubbed from streaming services and then apologized to Kendrick onstage at his Dreamville Festival for in April 2024. This all cleared the way for Drake and K. Dot to battle later that month.
Watch the clip below.
