J Cole says he was once rejected by Eminem’s manager: “He didn’t give a fuck”
J Cole may be one of the biggest active rappers of today, but there was once a time when he was getting rejected from major players in the music industry. During the latest episode of his new audio series, Cole opened up about being dismissed by Eminem’s manager, Paul Rosenberg, when he was meeting with various label figures.
During the early stages of his career, the North Carolina rapper was having conversations with a number of labels including G-Unit Records, Violator, Jive Records and Roc Nation, who he ultimately signed to. Another label he had conversations with was Shady Records, but co-founder Rosenberg apparently wasn’t at all interested in him.
“After that meeting [with G-Unit], we got a meeting with two people: one was Chris Lighty and the other was – I think Sha [Money XL] had something to do with this – he got us a meeting with Paul Rosenberg who is Eminem’s manager forever and runs Shady Records,” he recalled on Inevitable.
“Just like being at 50 [Cent]’s house and meeting Mark Pitts, it was, ‘Now we’re talking momentum.’ Just a year prior, I was fucking waiting outside on some Hail Mary shit for Jay-Z, and now I’m getting real momentum of people calling like, ‘They want to come and see us, they want us to pull up and play music.’”
During the episode, J Cole’s manager Ibrahim ‘Ib’ Hamad dived into the disaster meeting with Paul Rosenberg, claiming it felt like he was just doing someone a favour. While it seemed like Chris Lighty just wanted to give him advice, Paul Rosenberg, on the other hand, allegedly had no interest in Cole and didn’t understand the vision.
“Chris Lighty’s energy was more like, ‘Yo, I’m just gonna give y’all some game. Y’all young n-ggas I heard about, boom boom boom,'” he said. “And Paul Rosenberg genuinely felt like he was disinterested and didn’t give a fuck. It literally felt like it was a favor. There was no vibe to that meeting, he didn’t see it, he didn’t get it. Which is cool, he didn’t play us at all.”
Despite Rosenberg’s lack of interest, just making it into a room with Eminem’s manager was enough to keep him motivated and served as a sign of positive things to come. “But, once again I didn’t give a fuck because it was momentum,” he said. “The fact that I was right there with Eminem’s fucking manager and somehow I made it to him and on his fucking radar was just more proof of, ‘Yo, just keep doing what you’re fucking doing.’”
J Cole signed to Jay-Z’s Roc Nation in 2009 and went on to release his The Warm Up and Friday Night Lights mixtapes. He dropped his debut album Cole World: The Sideline Story in 2011, and the rest is history.