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Here’s What We Learned From J. Cole’s Interview With Angie Martinez

Posted on May 17th, 2018
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Known for rapping about his struggles in the hood, his family problems, and chasing his dreams, J. Cole has a gift for storytelling.

From his music to his interviews, J. Cole‘s fans connect with him on so many ways and what’s even much more admirable about the “4 Your Eyez Only” emcee is that when someone watches his interviews, you learn something new from him.

Over the weekend, the North Carolina MC sat down with radio veteran, Angie Martinez for an in-depth interview where he spoke about his new KOD album, the phone call from Kanye West, the true meaning behind “False Prophets,” who KiLL Edward is, and much more.

Watch the 90 minutes candid interview between Angie Martinez and J. Cole here, and check out what we learned below.

J. Cole Meditates Before His Shows

“Really the only thing I consistently do is, like, I do my breathing,” Cole, around the 4:15 mark, said of his pre-show routine. “I try to do like a meditation before I go on. Am I good at it? It depends. I don’t know. It works for me.” He also praised his occasional use of meditation for its ability to help him with general anxiety.

False Prophets” Isn’t Entirely All About Kanye West

In the interview, Cole confirms that “False Prophets” is partially about Kanye West. According to Cole, the song is really an “if the shoe fits” sort of situation and it doesn’t target a person as much as it does a phenomenon.

“First of all, [I’m] just a fan,” he told Martinez. “Really, I don’t know you. I’m just like a dude that was a fan back in the day, and when I’m writing ‘False Prophets,’ which that song wasn’t about him. There’s one verse that applies to him for sure, but if you listen to that song, that song is about what this shit is exposing. What I gotta check myself about. And I check myself on that song as well…We’re worshipping celebrities.”

Cole said anything he says about West comes from the perspective of someone who was a “back in the day” fan. “There’s one verse that applies to him for sure, but if you listen to that song, that song is about what this shit is exposing,” he said

The Kendrick x Cole Album Is Not Really Happening

Cole explained, the rumored project isn’t quite a reality. “We did a bunch of ideas, put it like that,” he said. “You wouldn’t call it an album, nothing like that . . . It’s not like, this is something that’s actively happening.”

Cole Wants To Face His Social Media Problems Like He Faced Drinking

He explains how he stopped drinking and linked it to a similar way of how he needs to approach social media in the future. “With social media, I was off it for so long that I thought I had beat this addiction, I had beat this thing, and then I got back on it and realized ‘Nah, you just took a break,'” he said. “The fix in the past was just ‘I’m getting off this shit.’ I think the fix right now is, nah, let me get on it and figure out, to feel, to become conscious of the pull.”

Someone DM’ed Cole Saying They Would Give Up Drugs After Cole Dropped “KOD”

Where a handful of people may suffer from a masturbation addiction, instead KOD‘s primary message deals with the perils of drug addiction, and it’s one that’s resonated with people all over. Cole learned this first hand when one fan sent him an Instagram direct message saying that he’d give up drugs.

He recounts the story of a fan who told him about his drug-addicted mother who, in the fan’s experience, mistreated him during her bout with the addiction. He tried his best to get her a recover center similar to one of those The Recovery Village Treatment Centers in the hopes that it will help her to get over your addiction. Eventually, the fan, encouraged by his loved ones, told him to distance himself from his mother, while she dealt with her addiction. Ultimately, he did just that, and his mother died.

Before jumping into the next part of the message the fan sent him on IG, Cole posited that the fan probably blamed himself.

From there, he says the fan told him he was about to use the weed and pills he just bought so he could celebrate 4/20, the stoner’s holiday on which Cole dropped KOD.

The fan told Cole that he was about to use the weed and pills he’d just bought in order to numb himself from the pain he was experiencing, but that he realized that he would only be doing the same things that led to his mother’s addiction.

“Bro, I just heard your [album] [and] I realized I’m doing the same thing that she was doing,” Cole says the fan told him. Continuing from the fan’s perspective, Cole said, “This how I’ve been numbing the pain and not hitting it head on.”

Cole goes on to say that he didn’t know how the fan would handle his drug habits going forward, but that he was happy to know that he inspired him to want to make a change.

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