J. Cole has removed his Kendrick Lamar diss “7 Minute Drill” from streaming services, less than a week after he told the crowd at his Dreamville Festival that he regretted releasing it and that he may take it off DSPs.
The rapper, who initially included “7 Minute Drill” on his surprise project “Might Delete Later,” was met with mixed reactions after announcing that he felt releasing the song was the “lamest shit I did in my fuckin’ life.” Some applauded his maturity for sharing that he had respect for Lamar and didn’t want to partake in a spat with the rapper; others claimed that it wasn’t in the spirit of hip-hop, which thrives on competition.
Lamar initially fired at J. Cole and Drake with an uncredited appearance on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That,” a cut included on the pair’s collaborative album “We Don’t Trust You” that released a few weeks back. Lamar took issue with a claim that Cole made on “First Person Shooter,” a duet with Drake featured on his 2023 album “For All the Dogs.”
On “First Person Shooter,” Cole included Kendrick in “the big three” alongside himself and Drake. “Love when they argue the hardest MC / Is it K. Dot? Is it Aubrey? Or me? / We the big three, like we started a league,” he rapped.
Lamar rebuffed the designation on “Like That,” stating, “Motherfuck the big three, n—a, it’s just big me.” While Cole has been vocal in his response to Lamar, Drake only vaguely referenced the verse during a show shortly after. “I got my head up high, my back straight, I’m 10 fucking toes down, and feeling like anywhere else I go,” he said. “And I know no matter what, there’s not a n—a on this Earth that can ever fuck with me in my life.”
Last night, though, the plot thickened after Cole made a surprise appearance on Future and Metro Boomin’s second album in three weeks, “We Still Don’t Trust You.” Cole appears on “Red Leather,” the final track on the first disc of the album, and while he doesn’t reference any of the issues with Lamar, many interpreted his cameo on the album as an affront to Drake.
Elsewhere on the album, listeners were quick to point out that ASAP Rocky’s verse on “Show of Hands” appears to fire at Drake. “N—s in they feelings over women, what, you hurt or somethin’? / I smash before you birthed, son, Flacko hit it first, son,” he raps, seemingly downplaying the lasting power of Drake’s “For All the Dogs.” “Still don’t trust you, it’s always us, never them / Heard you dropped your latest shit / Funny how it just came and went.”
