S. Samuel
Roc Nation star J. Cole has come clean on his new "Let Nas Down" record and just how God's Son himself reacted to the personal Born Sinner track.
Cole said he ran into Nas, by fate, during an early morning airplane flight they shared and let him hear the record.
“I played him the song, gave him my headphones. I was trying to hear what part of the song he was on because he was behind me,” he shared. “And then, like a minute into the song he was like, ‘Wooo,’ beatin’ my chair, you know what I mean, bangin’ my chair and then, just overall, he was wowed. The look on his face was like, honored that I would make that and then also highly impressed. That was a huge moment for me.” (BET)
Earlier this month, Cole provided some context to Nas’ reaction to his 2011 “Work Out” record.
“N*ggas were killing me,” Cole added, referring to the response to “Work Out.” “My partner gets a call from No I.D. who, that’s my mentor, you gotta understand that, he’s like, ‘What the f*ck? Who approved this sh*t?’ … So I was mad that he didn’t call me and he finally called me a week later and he was explaining to me, ‘Yo, to tell you the truth, I was in the studio with Nas man, and that n*gga was like, ‘Why the f*ck that n*gga make that sh*t? Don’t he know he the one? He was on track. Why the f*ck he do that?’ And I was hurt. I was like, d*mn, why he gonna say that? They gonna box me in like they box him in. F*ck that, I’m getting defensive. But really I was just hurt as a fan, you know what I mean? I idolized that dude, I had his raps written on my wall. So, I said that long a** story so that you have perspective for that song on your menu that says, ‘Let Nas Down’ and I had to tell you that.” (YouTube)
A few weeks ago, the North Carolina rapper laughed off a rumored “I Disappointed Nas” title.
“‘I Disappointed Nas,’ [laughs] Please put this out tonight and tell them that’s not the title of the song,” Cole said in an interview. “That’s terrible. That’s why I don’t like playing songs for people early too, because I’m into surprises. And you’ve already like kind of ruined the surprise and murdered the title. ‘I Disappointed Nas.’ And that’s my man, too. Bro’s probably gonna look at it like, ‘Jesus Christ.'” (Soul Culture UK)
New York radio station Hot 97’s Peter Rosenberg said the song stemmed from Nas revealing how upset he was after hearing Cole’s “Work Out” anthem back in 2011.
“J. Cole’s album is supposed to be dope. His production has supposedly improved quite a bit,” Rosenberg said during his morning show this week. “And here’s a tidbit I heard a while ago that’s pretty exciting. Supposedly, there’s a song on the J. Cole called something along the lines of, ‘I Disappointed Nas,’ about how Nas supposedly reached out to J. Cole after he heard ‘Workout,’ and was like, ‘Nah fam, I expected more from you from this.’ And supposedly J. Cole gets really personal and has a whole song about how it felt to have disappointed one of his heroes in music, Nas. The second I heard this, it got me incredibly antsy to hear this. I think that’s one of the things I’ve been wanting to really hear from J. Cole. It’s more of him and his story. So I need to hear that. His album comes out June 18th, I’ve heard nothing but good things. So let’s see if this song actually ends up being on the album. That’s what I heard, you can expect from J. Cole. Just a little gem.” (Hot 97)
Check out J. Cole’s interview:
