It finally happened. Today (April 5), J. Cole responded to Kendrick Lamar on wax, two weeks after the Compton emcee set the world on fire with his “Like That” verse. Titled “7 Minute Drill,” Cole’s diss record served as a closer for the surprise album Might Delete Later, a 12-song offering that he teased intermittently over the past couple of months. The project, released just ahead of the 2024 Dreamville Festival, boasted additional appearances from the likes of Ari Lennox, Gucci Mane, and Ab-Soul.
The T-Minus and Conductor Williams-produced “7 Minute Drill” almost immediately dived into the growing battle within what many have been calling “The Big Three“ -- the trio of Cole, Lamar, and Drake, the last of whom has yet to join in the fracas on wax.
“Your first s**t was classic, your last s**t was tragic/ Your second s**t put n**gas to sleep, but they gassed it," Cole rapped about his pgLang adversary during the first half of the song. After the beat switched, he added, "Four albums in 12 years, n**ga, I can divide/ S**t, if this is what you want, I'm indulgin' in violence."
As expected, Twitter quickly went into an uproar -- largely because Hip Hop fans were thankful for some excitement in rap. "If anything, you gotta appreciate Kendrick and Cole for getting in the ring and cutting out all that buddy-buddy s**t that’s been going on for too long," wrote user ernestbaker. "Dudes probably don’t even really have issues like that. They just know the game was getting dry and needed some theater."
Others, including Kameron_Hay, addressed Cole's claim that Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly was ultimately nothing more than a snooze fest. "'Mortal Man' is on TPAB, man. I don’t gotta spin the album every day, but trying to say that it’s sleepy is a wild claim," he tweeted.
Check out plenty of other comments about Cole's Lamar diss below.