After a few months of teasing the project, J. Cole finally released The Off-Season last week. The full-length effort delivered a batch of songs that left even his biggest critics satisfied. Days after its release, Cole gave the effort a boost with a fiery video for the track “Amari.” But it turns out the song’s creation didn’t go easily, as J. Cole revealed during a sit-down with Timbaland’s BeatClub YouTube channel.
“Amari” began life during a Twitch livestream held by Timbaland, who produced the song, during which he created what became the song’s beat. After Cole heard it, he decided to record over it. “So I looped up the YouTube lil’ rip, made a whole song on this sh*t,” he said during the sit-down. “I spent the next two days writing and recording the song, and right when I was 90% through writin’ it, I was like, I should probably call him now and get the real file.”
However, things didn’t go as Cole might have expected. When he asked Timbaland to send him the beat, the producer told him he forgot to save it. Luckily, Cole and Timbaland found time to recreate it.
You can watch the BeatClub interview above.