J. Cole has finally weighed in on his widely discussed apology to Kendrick Lamar after his 2024 diss, touching on it in a new freestyle from Birthday Blizzard ’26.
On one track from the surprise release, Cole raps, “I used to be top, see, the apology dropped me way out of the top 3/ No problem, I’m probably my best when they doubt me.”
“The top wasn’t really what I imagined it to be, so I stepped off, landed back at the bottom, and started over from a place where I wasn’t as highly regarded—just to climb past them again and tell everyone to keep up,” Cole continued.
The bars pointed back to “7 Minute Drill,” the diss track Cole released toward Lamar before Kendrick’s highly publicized 2024 rap battle with Drake. On the record, Cole didn’t take many hard shots at K. Dot, instead brushing off his music as boring.
Not long after, J. Cole addressed the situation onstage at his Dreamville Festival in North Carolina, where he delivered a lengthy apology to Lamar.
“I put out this project on Friday called, Might Delete Later… I don’t know how many people checked it out or whatever,” he said. “And, I swear to God… I’m so proud of that project. Because, I know, one, it’s just an EP that leads me to this thing that I’ve been working on for a long time and I know the work it took to get to a certain type of skill level… that shit mean a lot to me… I’m so proud of that project, except for one part.”
Cole went on to acknowledge that fans and peers might not like what he was about to say. “Y’all love Kendrick Lamar, correct? As do I,” he added.
“So I just wanna come up here and publicly be like bruh, that was the lamest goofiest shit, and I say all that to say it made me feel like 10 years ago when I was moving incorrectly, and I pray that god will line me back up on my purpose and my path, I pray that my n***a didn’t feel no way,” Cole continued. “And if he did, my n***a, I got my chin out, take your best shot, I’ma take that shit on the chin, boy. Do what you do. all good. It’s love. And I pray that y’all will like, forgive a n***a for the misstep and I can get back to my true path, ’cause I ain’t gonna lie to y’all, the past two days felt terrible.”
Cole is expected to revisit the moment again on his upcoming album, The Fall Off, which arrives on Feb. 6.
