Cover Story: J. Cole

Another project that he’s keeping quiet on is his joint studio album with Kendrick Lamar, which originated as a mixtape. Though the two haven’t hit the studio since laying down cuts including K. Dot’s “HiiiPoWeR,” Cole spoke with the Compton rapper about flying him out to London to spend a week recording their collaborative LP. “At the end of the day, you’re dealing with two solo artists who are on the move all the time,” he explains. “At some point, you’ve got to connect. I think it will happen.”

In the meantime, fans don’t have to worry about Cole entirely going into hibernation. He’s already filmed a video for “Nobody’s Perfect” with Missy Elliott, which he plans to release at the top of the year, and recently popped up on tracks by Omen, Wale, Elle Varner and Elite. There are a few more collaborations and unscheduled freestyles in the pipeline to impact while he’s recording album number two in January and February, but for Cole, the quantity of music released has nothing on quality – his newest benchmark for success.

“I just want my albums to improve and I just always want to keep up the quality. I want the next album to kill this album, and I want the album after that to kill that one. It’s not even about killing it… I just want to maintain a bar for myself – a high bar,” he says. “Of course, I want to do big numbers, but my focus is not on numbers. My focus is on the album. Like, how good can I make this album? Can I change the game musically? How can I come back and shock the game for real? I went through so many hoops of fire just to get this album out. I had to go through a lot of red tape and shit, but this [next] album, nobody can’t tell me nothing. I’m excited about that freedom.”