The reason for J Cole and No Name’s brief beef
J Cole isn’t one to jump into feuds on a regular basis. Despite his diss track ‘7 Minute Dril’ aimed at Kendrick Lamar earlier this year, the North Carolina emcee is mostly a figure completely detached from the rivalries and battles that often emerge in hip-hop.
However, he has had some quite strange interactions with other artists in the past and, in 2020, found himself in an unofficial feud with Chicago female emcee Noname. Although the pair had a completely normal, cordial friendship, for reasons mostly unknown, the two lyricists found themselves briefly exchanging words.
Last year, following the release of her sophomore album, Sundial, Noname spoke with Chicago online media outlet The Triibe about the confusing predicament she found herself in in 2020 when she was told J Cole had dissed her.
On June 16th 2020, Cole released a song entitled ‘Snow On Tha Bluff’. However, with lyrics referring to “a young lady”, the Raleigh emcee rapped, “I scrolled through her timeline in these wild times, and I started to read / She mad at these crackers, she mad at these capitalists.”
Although the K.O.D. creator reassured listeners he understood where the anonymous “lady” was coming from, he then followed with the line “But shit, it’s something about the queen tone that’s botherin’ me.”
There was nothing too incendiary in the lyrics and nothing too disrespectful, but fans being fans, Noname was urged to respond as quickly as possible and, consequentially, released her own track, ‘Song 33’, as a direct response to Cole.
On her reply, Noname describes Cole as part of the “patriarchy” and details the political predicament of America, asking fans, “It’s trans women bein’ murdered, and this is all he can offer?”
However, akin to Cole with Kendrick Lamar this year, after releasing her diss track, Noname made an apology, tweeting, “my ego got the best of me.” During her interview with The Triibe, Noname insisted that the exchange really meant nothing.
Explaining this, she stated, “That whole situation was so interesting because it really was not a beef.” She continued, “It was a conversation between two rappers who are on the same side of the spectrum of hip-hop. I’d say people place J Cole in the conscious bubble, and they place me as a conscious rapper too.”
As an exchange between two socially aware artists, Noname insisted it was an exchange about ideologies, adding, “We had an ideological disagreement over some dope instrumentals. That’s it. It’s no real beef between us.”
Last year, to make amends, Noname disclosed that she had asked J Cole to appear at one of her Sundial launch parties, detailing, “[I] actually hit him up to see if he could pop out for the [Sundial] Block Party, but he wasn’t able to [make it]. was trying to get him to be on the ‘special guests’ roster. But he hit me back, and it was like all love, and he’s super supportive. He was like, ‘Let me know how to support the event. I’ll try to donate to the prison chapters.’”
As usual, J Cole’s brief exchange with Noname wasn’t really a feud and didn’t amount to anything, but according to the latter, it was an exchange of ideologies. You can hear the two tracks released in the videos below.