J Cole addresses Kendrick Lamar apology for the first time
J Cole has addressed his apology to Kendrick Lamar after exiting his beef with Drake in 2024.
The Dreamville rapper dropped a diss track called ‘7 Minute Drill’ at the end of his Might Delete Later mixtape in response to K Dot’s ‘Like That’ verse.
However, Cole quickly had a change of heart and decided to delete the song altogether, while apologising to Kendrick for going at him.
Now, he’s addressed the apology for the first time on a new song from his surprise mixtape, Birthday Blizzard ’26, released on January 28th.
On ‘Bronx Zoo Freestyle’, which finds Cole rapping over Diddy’s ‘Victory’ instrumental from 1998, he acknowledges the backlash to his apology but embraces the critics.
Cole spits, “The top ain’t really what I thought it would be/ And so I jumped off and landed back at the bottom/ And restarted at a level where I wasn’t regarded as much/ Just to climb past them again and tell ’em all to keep up.”
He adds, “I used to be top seed/ Apology dropped me way out of the top three/ No problem, I’m probably my best when they doubt me/ Watch me, watch me.”
In his apology at Dreamville Festival, Cole admitted he felt terrible after dissing Kendrick and hoped the Compton rapper didn’t take it personally.
“I just wanna come up here and publicly be like, bruh, that was the lamest, goofiest shit,” he said. “And I say all that to say, it made me feel like 10 years ago when I was moving incorrectly, and I pray that god will line me back up on my purpose and my path. I pray that my n*gga didn’t feel no way.”
He continued, “And if he did, my n*gga, I got my chin out, take your best shot, I’ma take that shit on the chin, boy. Do what you do. All good. It’s love. And I pray that y’all will like, forgive a n*gga for the misstep and I can get back to my true path, ’cause I ain’t gonna lie to y’all, the past two days felt terrible.”