J Cole Reveals Why He Dissed Kanye West On His Own Song

J Cole and Kanye West‘s relationship has always been complicated, and recently, the Dreamville founder recalled some of the tension leading up to their 2010 G.O.O.D. Fridays collaboration “Looking For Trouble.” Ye hosted a UStream before dropping My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and according to Cole, made a comment that he perceived as dismissive. A fan had asked Ye whether or not he had any plans to work with Cole, and his response left the then-up-and-coming artist disappointed.

“Kanye’s answer was, like — I don’t think anybody watching it would notice, but me being me, I looked at him like, ‘Aw, that sh*t was hella dismissive,’” he explained during a new episode of his Inevitable audio series. “He said, ‘I mean, we might put him on one of the G.O.O.D. Fridays or something.’ It was like a, ‘Yes, but.’ He’s not a n***a that I would [feature on my album] […] If he would’ve been like, ‘Yeah, it would be fire to put him on a G.O.O.D. Friday [song]’ it would have been a different feeling.” Eventually, Cole received a call from Ye asking him to record a verse for the series. At first, he said no, but he later agreed after some convincing.

“[Kanye] was like, ‘I asked such and such and they make it happen.’ It was a polite flex of like, ‘I think you can make this happen.’ It made me be like, ‘Alright, yeah, how can I make it happen?’” he explained. “Mind you, I didn’t have nobody’s verse. The n***a just sent me the beat. I didn’t know what the f*ck the song was!”

J Cole went on, breaking down his verse and admitting that he threw some jabs at the Chicago rapper. “The world has never known that,” he said. “Those were direct shots [at Kanye] because days prior I had seen the n***a be like, ‘Ah, we might put him on a G.O.O.D. Friday song or something.’ […] And those are shots I know only [Kanye] would feel.”