Yesterday, 21 Savage headlined Hot 107.9's Birthday Bash event in Atlanta, where he surprised fans with a special guest. He brought out J. Cole, who performed a 5-minute-long set of hits, including his collab with Lil Durk, "All My Life." The crowd at the State Farm Arena went wild for the appearance.
The duo led with their 2018 I Am > I Was collab, "A Lot." “Atlanta, make some muthaf*ckin’ noise for J. Cole,” 21 Savage told the audience when they'd completed the song. “Hold on, don’t go nowhere. I need you to do a couple more for me, bro.” J. Cole then performed "All My Life," followed by his 2014 hit, "No Role Modelz." The event, dubbed a “Salute to 50 Years of Hip Hop,” also featured sets from GloRilla, NLE Choppa, and more.
J. Cole's 5-Minute Set
Earlier this week, Lil Durk revealed that it took him and J. Cole years to settle on their "All My Life" collab. “He went super cr*zy,” he told Nadeska. Durk expanded, “And it’s so cr*zy because we’d been talking for, like, two years. He’d always be like, ‘Send me a record.’ And I’m like, ‘I gotta find the right record.’ Man, I’m glad it wasn’t three years. In my eyes, he a legend so if you have a chance to do a song with a legend, you either send them something just to send it, just to say you got one, or you gon’ make it stick. But that’s why I never just sent him a record. ‘Cause I’m like, ‘I want something that’s gon’ stick.’ Yeah, as soon as I did the record, he’s the first person that popped into my head. I’m like, ‘I got it.’ Yeah, that’s why I believe in timing. Timing is everything.”
Durk previously praised J. Cole's verse on the hit, saying he “had to listen to it like four times.” “You know I ain’t super big on lyricist-type rappers," he told RapCaviar in May, "With Cole, [he] was one of the ones, like him and Jay, you gotta play them 50 times to catch what they’re saying. Like, if you listen to Lil Wayne right now, and you heard some s**t ten years ago that you just catch onto today. But he definitely gave me one of them verses and I appreciate it. ‘Cause he ain’t even have to, for real. He could’ve gave us anything.”