For quite some time, fans have been waiting for a rumored Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole joint album to drop. Rumors first surfaced in 2010, and have been followed up with more speculation over the past years. A recent twitter hijacking sent the rumors into overdrive once more.
Atlanta Hip-hop duo EarthGang, signees of Cole’s label Dreamville, recently hopped on the rapper's social to spark some speculation. The group tweeted from Cole's account: "Wassup Mufuckas. Cole left his laptop open so before we leak this new Cole X Kendrick album check this link." The link that the duo were referring to directed fans to their COLORS show performance of their new single "Up." The single comes off their debut album, Mirrorland.
Naturally, one might lean towards the opinion that the post is a means of getting Cole's twitter followers to listen to EarthGang's single, and nothing more. Earlier this year, Cole visited Power 105.1 for an interview with Angie Martinez and seemed to shut down any reports of a joint album. He shared that while he had been in the studio with Pulitzer Prize winning Lamar, there wasn't an album in the works. “We just did a few songs. Like, we did a bunch of ideas,” he told Martinez. “Put it like that. It was nothing like, you wouldn’t call it an album.” He went on to say, “It’s not like it’s something that’s actively happening. Not because it’s never gonna happen. Just because, like… it’s not right now, and I don’t like teasing or playing the game ’cause this has been going on for a minute.”