It’s a Christmas miracle — there’s a new Nardwuar interview! This time, the stalwart of Canadian music journalism is speaking with none other than platinum with — and with no — features, J. Cole. Cole has had a pretty incredible year with the release of The Off-Season earlier this year. Now that his latest project has gone platinum, it’s time for Cole to do some reflecting alongside the ever inquisitive Nardwuar.
Here’s a clip of a *new* interview I did with J. Cole ! Check out the *FULL* version at https://t.co/XNXGDLEbPO Doot doo ! @JColeNC @Dreamville pic.twitter.com/pBoNyAmRgE
— Nardwuar (@nardwuar) December 25, 2021
This time, Nardwuar wants to know about the Dreamville label-head’s taste in other rappers — he shocks J. Cole by bringing up the fact that it was Cole who told Dr. Dre about Kendrick Lamar back in the day. Sitting silent for almost a full ten seconds after Nardwuar asks him about it, Cole finally tells the story. You can see the excerpt in the tweet above, or the whole interview up top. But a transcript of the gist of what he says is below.
“I’m not going to say I was the first to tell him… when I brought him up to Dre I was like ‘You know what you gotta do is’ — I went in there to work on Detox, you know like how Dre do, if you’re a young rapper and he rock with you, he want to bring you through and have you test the waters — so yeah I was like ‘yo you got to sign this kid from Compton, boom boom, Kendrick boom boom.’ And then [another guy] was like ‘oh yeah that’s the kid I was telling you about! boom boom boom’ So, I have no clue, you know what I mean? I’ve never heard anybody say that type of sh*t, but shout out to Dr. Dre, he made the right decision.”
Well, thanks for helping the entire world get the gift of Kendrick Lamar, Cole! And thanks to Nardwuar for always knowing the best and deepest secrets of every single artist.