To celebrate the fake, shit show of a wannabe holiday that comes one day after November’s real major holiday, two of the brightest stars in hip-hop swapped instrumentals and laid down new lyrics in what could be an epic case of foreshadowing.
J. Cole dropped a remix to Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright”, off of his über conscious record To Pimp A Butterfly earlier today. At the same time, Kendrick released a remix to Cole’s “A Tale of Two Citiez”, which was off Cole’s highly successful 2014 Forrest Hills Drive LP.
Fans have been waiting for something like this for what feels like forever and a day. With rumors swirling for the better part of two years, and with the success of Drake and Future’s collaboration project What A Time To Be Alive this summer, much of the hip-hop community (HHSR included) has speculated on if and when we would see a joint endeavor from Cole and Kendrick.
This isn’t quite a joint project, but it was a very intentional instrumental exchange. Both were released within minutes of one another on their respective SoundCloud accounts (Why does it have to be SoundCloud? SoundCloud sucks), and both used essentially the same cover art under the name “Black Friday”. Cole does nothing but fan the flames of a potential project when he ends his freestyle by hinting at something “scary” dropping in February (not necessary a work with Kendrick, but still).
It’s also worth noting that Cole started his verse by saying, “Let’s get the proceedings proceeding this evening/No promethazine, I’m a king, no leaning/I got a better way to fight these demons…” which could…COULD…be interpreted as a sneak diss aimed at Future Hendrix.
Meanwhile, when he wasn’t ironically referring to himself as “Jimmy Kendrick”, K Dot was ripped for four straight minutes, and took time to point out, “I kill this whole muthafucking beat if J. Cole say it”, again alluding to the preordained nature of the two songs.
Were the perceived shots (that term used loosely) taken at Future as intentional as the dual release? Maybe. After all, Kendrick has been sneak dissing Drake for awhile now. But maybe this is just the interpretation of one listener who is admittedly wishing that they were, because pitting Kendrick and Cole against Future and Drake would be a tag team match the likes of which have not been seen since The Mega Powers battled The Mega Bucks at SummerSlam ’88.
These days there is such thing as admiration going too far, which can actually stifle creativity. Competition, on the other hand, fuels creativity. We saw it with Jay and Nas, we saw it with Kanye and 50, and we may be witnessing it again.
A day after we heard veritable feast of new music from Lil Wayne, Fabolous and 50 Cent (and supposedly Future, although it never actually dropped), it was the Black Friday leftovers that gave us the most food for thought.