The worst show of J Cole’s career: “We weren’t getting the response I was used to”
J Cole’s career is a long one that is still moving as fast as ever. Earlier this year, the emcee attempted to enter the exhilarating Kendrick Lamar and Drake beef with his diss track ‘7 Minute Drill’. However, the quiet and humble rapper quickly regretted his decision and issued an apology to Lamar.
Irrespective of the above, as a lyricist, he has earned a great deal of respect and is considered one of the best contemporary hip-hop artists. That said, Cole has been around for a long while and, prior to bursting onto the scene, honed his rapping skills as a support act for bigger artists on Roc Nation.
Before his debut album was released, Cole was gathering momentum by releasing mixtapes. He first garnered attention with his 2009 second mixtape release, The Warm Up. With a noticeable amount of downloads on platforms such as DatPiff and iTunes, he managed to land a record deal with Roc Nation.
As such, Early in his career, Cole was bagging huge features such as Wale, Talib Kweli and, as a part of the Roc Nation roster, even featured on Jay-Z’s 2009 album The Blueprint Three.
Unsurprisingly, with all this exposure, by 2012, when he released his debut album Cole World: The Sideline Story, he was well-received. However, in the lead-up to its release, he supported Roc Nation vocalist Rihanna while in the US and Tinie Tempah in the UK. That said, while he was in the UK, in a suite in London’s K-West hotel, Cole spoke to GQ magazine about life on the road as well as how the reception he was getting while performing abroad.
Cole’s affiliation with Roc Nation helped him immensely but, according to the ‘Wet Dreamz’ rhymer also led to some strange rumours. Elaborating on it, he told GQ some of the chat online, detailing, “[One rumour is] That I had a sex tape with me and Rihanna and that I was dropped from Roc Nation and Jay-Z had beef with me. They all happened in a two-week span of blog rumours.” He added, “It was so strange for me, but it really showed me how rumours work – they come from nowhere. As long as they make sense to people, that is all that seems to matter.”
Although, of course, fans and journalists alike enjoy a success story, during his interview, Cole was also asked to highlight some of his shortfalls. One of the more humorous stories related to a haircut he once had. Recalling the absurd style, Cole told GQ, “I had a rat-tail when I was younger. I had this nice Bobby Brown fade, with a rat-tail that was long enough to wrap around my face.”
He continued, “I used to chew on the end and bite it. It was a sign of the times – that was cool in the Eighties, but you couldn’t get away with that now. It’s like the mullet – you can never go back.”
However, one of the shortfalls was more recent. During the conversation, he spoke about his worst live performance ever and it happened to be in the UK. Opening up about it, he told the journalist, “The first night of the Tinie Tempah tour. The crowd were throwing their hands up, but I knew they were just doing it to be nice. We were underprepared. We thought we would just take the set from opening up for Rihanna in America.”
He then revealed that he didn’t think about preparing for a different market used to different styles of rap music, whether faster or more angry. Detailing his lack of planning, Cole concluded, “We didn’t realise it would be a whole different crowd and a whole different market. Because I was coming off my own tour in the States where I was selling out everywhere, I was not getting the response I was used to, and I had to adjust really quick. The next show, of course, we killed it.”
Since 2012, J Cole has perfected his live performances and hasn’t let fans down for a long time.