The legendary J Cole recently begged Kanye West to clear a sample so he can officially release one of his most adored tracks, ‘Villematic’, a cover of West’s 2010 track ‘Devil In A New Dress’ featuring Rick Ross. The North Carolina artist pleaded during a live performance at the renowned Dreamville festival, which he was co-headlining alongside Drake.
The Forest Hills Drive act made the plea towards the end of his set as he proceeded to perform ‘Villematic’ for the first time in over a decade. ‘Villematic’ is a reference to his North Caroline hometown of Fayetteville. This most recent live performance of the 2010 track featured his show-stealing guest verse from Benny The Butcher’s ‘Johnny P’s Caddy.’ After putting on his wild show, Cole declared, “Shout out to Kanye West! Please clear the sample for me, my brother. I appreciate it.”
The track ‘Villematic’ is 13 years old at this point. However, it never had an official release with a high-quality mix and master. The cover featured on Cole’s 2010 mixtape Friday Night Lights, which the act uploaded to DatPiff. The project, which was available for free, received vast amounts of critical acclaim and ultimately became the reason Cole managed to land a record deal with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation label.
Even though the 2010 mixtape played such a big part in helping Cole get recognised, the project has remained absent from streaming services as West still needs to clear the sample. In 2020, for Friday Night Lights’ tenth anniversary, the musician took to social media to post, “My dream is to one day have this on DSP’s where it belongs.” As well as the latter Cole has also alluded that he desires to release his 2009 mixtape, The Warm Up.
Following his antisemitic career-destroying rampage last year, West has been pretty quiet on social media as he bounces between being banned and being present. So far, the ‘All Of The Lights’ musician has been out of action and silent. Perhaps Cole’s plea may prompt West to come out of the woodworks finally. You can see the live performance of ‘Villematic’ in the video below.
