J. Cole can rest peacefully tonight knowing the regret of having dissed Kendrick Lamar is no longer sitting on his chest. During his headlining performance at his own Dreamville festival this weekend, the rapper led the crowd in a reflective meditation on “7 Minute Drill,” the diss track he released in response to Lamar’s featured verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That,” admitting: “That’s the lamest shit I ever did in my fucking life.”
During the four-minute speech, Cole detailed the internal turmoil the song caused for him, noting that these past few nights reminded him of how well he’s been sleeping this past decade. “I moved in a way that I spiritually feel bad on,” he explained. “I tried to like, jab my nigga back and I tried to keep it friendly. But at the end of the day, when I listen to it and when it comes out and I see the talk, that shit don’t sit right with my spirit. That shit disrupts my fucking peace.”
Cole’s own read of the song isn’t too far off from the general response to it. It’s one of the few instances in which anyone would advise someone to not say anything at all if they did have nice things to say. Cole went album-by-album through Lamar’s catalog in one verse, reaching the tame and measured conclusion: “Your first shit was classic, your last shit was tragic / Your second shit put niggas to sleep, but they gassed it / Your third shit was massive and that was your prime.”
In a review of “7 Minute Drill,” Rolling Stone‘s Andre Gee wrote: “Cole may have thought he was doing the sensible thing by being measured on ‘7 Minute Drill,’ but rap beef is a toxic, nonsensical arena. Rap fans want to hear artists take it all the way there, not be overly conscientious and almost deferential on the battlefield.”
Cole took note of this, too. “I know this is not what a lot of people want to hear — I can hear my niggas up there right now, like ‘Nah, don’t do that,’ but I gotta keep it a hundred with y’all. I damn near had a relapse,” he told the Dreamville audience. “I got the world and I got my niggas like, ‘What you gonna do Cole?’ Boy, I must have had a thousand missed calls, oh my fucking God — texts flooded. I couldn’t answer my shit. ‘Nigga it’s war time!’”
The hesitancy in “7 Minute Drill” was a reflection of the real-life struggle Cole was faced with when responding to Lamar’s verse, which took aim more heavily at Drake than at him. “I know how I feel about my peers. These two niggas that I’ve just been blessed to even stand beside in this game, let alone chase — chase their greatness, right? So I felt conflicted because I don’t really feel no way. But the world wants to see blood.”
Drake has yet to respond to the recent drama in any meaningful capacity. The rapper was rumored to make a surprise appearance at Dreamville, but ultimately did not take the stage. Drake and Cole shared a tour together last year in addition to releasing a milestone-achieving collaboration in October. Lamar and Cole have less of a public track record, but the North Carolina rapper’s admiration has always been palpable.
“What I want to say right here tonight is, in the midst of me doing that and in that shit — trying to find a little angle and downplay this nigga’s fucking catalog and his greatness — I want to say right now tonight, how many people think Kendrick Lamar is one of the greatest motherfuckers to ever touch the fucking mic?” The audience erupted into cheers, but online Cole is already being criticized for being “soft” and not standing his ground.