For years, rumours had swirled that J. Cole had beef with Diddy, but for the most part, these remained unconfirmed. That is until recently when J. Cole revealed all about the truth about their relationship.
The whole story goes back to when J. Cole was just a kid. In the track, he released earlier this year, ‘Let Go My Hand’, the rapper put forward the verse: “I bought that n***a album in seventh grade and played it so much / You would’ve thought my favourite rapper was Puff / Back then I ain’t know s***, now I know too much.”
The line prior to that helps to explain why J. Cole now disavows a love for his former hero. As he raps: “Last scrap was with Puff Daddy, who would’ve thought it?” That scrap was back in 2013 and it involved fellow rap phenom, Kendrick Lamar.
After the 2013 MTV awards, all three hip hop stars were present at an after-party. Early in the year, Diddy had taken offence to the Lamar song ‘Control’ whereby he basically steps on everyone’s turf from Diddy to Elvis and even Phil Jackson as he declares himself the king of everywhere.
Despite not calling Diddy out directly in ‘Control’ (or perhaps because of that) Diddy took offence. And when Diddy spotted Lamar across the room enjoying a drink, he planned to fetch him another one, and pour it all over his head. It was at this stage, however, that apparently others step in to defuse the situation, including J. Cole who then inadvertently made himself the target of Diddy’s drunken wrath and an ‘altercation’ ensued.
Fortunately, nothing further came of the incident, that is until J. Cole recently revisited when laying out all his various skirmishes in song. In The Off Season track ‘Let My Hand Go’, the rapper states: “I kept a tough demeanour on the surface but was mostly just pretendin’ / Luckily my bluff was workin’ way more often than not.”
This verse may well imply that the fight was all drunken posturing in the first place. And with Diddy finishing up the track with a prayer it would seem that the beef has long since been resolved. With the album receiving praise from none other than Barack Obama, it would seem all is well that ends well even if it did initially cause a pretty awkward hangover.
