J. Cole is keeping his name current, not only by dropping a free EP, Truly Yours, but doing interviews such as the one he did the other day with Power 106's Rikki Martinez. While taking on air, the two discuss his new EP, baby mamas, and when we'll be getting Born Sinner.
Rikki started off the interview by asking Cole about his affinity for rapping about baby mamas, but in a different way than most of the rap genre. In particular, she brings up the Lauryn Hill-sampled "Rise Above" on Truly Yours.
J. Cole explains the origin of the song, "I remember I was on tour, and I just had the urge to write, and I happened to be listening to [the] Lauryn Hill album, and I heard that song with like new ears. I listen to that album all the time but for some reason on that day I was like, 'ah man, I could just rap on this, like yo, this beat is empty right here.' So I looped the beat up and those words came out easy." He continued discuss the general theme of the track, "In terms of theme, that's something that is missing, like you said. It's not even a love song, it's more [about] a friendship. Talking about women as friends, 'cause we do have female as friends, it's either a love song or hate song when it comes to women, no in between, and I was giving more of a realistic view of a relationship between a man and woman."
Although the content of the song is very strong, it won't appear on Born Sinner simply because Cole doesn't want to try to clear the sample. "I figured I probably couldn't clear the sample. I wouldn't even wanna try honestly 'cause that's like about her son," he said.
As the interview winds up, Rikki asks Cole a bunch of "yes/no" questions, which he mainly answers with "maybes." Will we see a Kendrick Lamar or Jay-Z feature on his upcoming LP? The Roc Nation artist says, "maybe." Will Born Sinner drop by Tupac's birthday (June 16th)? Cole says it'll be close to that date, "Maybe a hair shy of that." Finally, on if we'll see the Kendrick and J. Cole collaborative project by the end of the year, the rapper says, "It's possible. We might see that completion of that album this year, I don't know if we'll see the actual release."
Listen to the full audio of the interview below.