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Usually I Start With A Beat, I Start Making A Beat, And My Producer Side Is Making The Beat. And On A Good Day, My Rapper Side Will Jump In And Start The Writing Process - Maybe Come Up With A Hook Or Start A Verse. Sometimes It Just Happens Like That. A Song Like 'lights Please' Happens Like That.

-J. Cole

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Usually I Start With

J. Cole

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Usually I Start With A Beat, I Start Making A Beat, And My Producer Side Is Making The Beat. And On A Good Day, My Rapper Side Will Jump In And Start The Writing Process - Maybe Come Up With A Hook Or Start A Verse. Sometimes It Just Happens Like That. A Song Like 'lights Please' Happens Like That.

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I Feel Like I'm A New Yorker Because I Really Know The City. I Actually Tell The Drivers Where To Go - I Have This Bad Habit, I Always Question The Drivers. I Do That All The Time Because I Feel Like I Know The Best Way, When Really It's Like, 'yo, Man, Shut Up. This Dude Does This Every Day Of His Life.'

To Appreciate The Sun You Gotta Know What Rain Is.

Anything I Do, I Want To Do It Well.

In My Mind, New York Was The Place Where They Had The Underground Rap Shows And I Could Get In On Some Ciphers And Just Rap. This Whole Fantasy World I Had Created In My Head About New York Just From Listening To The Music My Whole Life, Like, I'ma Go Up There And Do That. But When I Came Up Here, There Was None Of That, That Scene Was Dead.

Hard To Move On When You Always Regret One.

No Need To Fix What God Already Put His Paint Brush On

I'm Half-black, Half-white, So I Basically Put It Like This: I Can Fit In Anywhere. That's Why I Write So Many Stories From So Many Different Perspectives, Because I've Seen So Many.

The Music Becomes More Pure And Soulful When It's True, And It Has To Be True These Days With The Way The Internet Works, And The Way The Game Works, Everyone Wants Authentic Raps.

I Truly Believe That I Make My Path And I Set My Course, And Where I Land, At The End Of The Day, Or The End Of My Career, [is] Because Of Me. Of Course, You Get Help Along The Way, And Cosigns And Management And Opportunities And Things Like That But Overall, The Ball Is In Your Court Basically.

Yeah School Girl, Cool Girl. Your Dress Is Sexy And Your Momma Is A Cougar.

I'm Not A Conscious Rapper, All Those Things We Talk About, The Struggle, The Pain, The Outlook To The Future, Keep Your Head Up. I Try To Put All Those Positive Things Into A Regular Human Character, Which Is Myself.

Life Is A Movie, Pick Your Own Role, Climb Your Own Ladder Or You Dig Your Own Hole.

I Kinda Like The Idea Of Having An Album That's All Me.

There Was The Time I Bought Three Cars In The Span Of Three Or Four Weeks. It Was Crazy; It Wasn't Greedy. It Was Mine, My Girl's, My Mom's. I Got Benzes For My Ladies. But I Felt Crazy. You Have To Understand I Come From A World Where We're Very Modest. But That's Not Greedy. That's Nice, Right?

I Begged My Mom For A Beat Machine, She Spent A Crazy Amount Of Money - So There Were No More Christmases, No More Basketball Camps, No More Birthday Gifts. I Always Knew That's What I Wanted To Do.

I'm Not Gonna Be Bad At Anything, And I Want To Actually Be The Best At Anything I'm Doing. So If I'm Playing Basketball, If I'm Taking The Sats, Like, There's A Competitive Spirit Behind It. With Production, It's The Same Thing.

I Have A Little Bit Of That Gamer Spirit In Me. I Just Don't Have The Time To Be A Gamer. But In Another Life, I Would Be One.

I Think If I Did Something In The Pop World Right Now, It Would Be For Rihanna. I'd Love To Do Something Production Wise For Her.

As Much As It Might Look Like, To Someone Else, That I'm Successful, I Never Feel Like I'm Anywhere. The Further I Go, I Still Feel Equally Further From My Eventual Goal. Because As I Grow, I Get More Goals. I'm Never Content.

In Marriage You Got To Go Through The Same Struggles As A Relationship, That's If The Relationship Is Real, Because There's A Lot Of Non-real Relationships Going On In The World Right Now. And I Think That's Just Because Of The Day And Age We're In, A Lot Of These Relationships Are Taking Place Over Text Messages, It's Not Real Substance. But When You Got A Real One, It's Already Like A Marriage.

If You Ain't Aim Too High, Then You Aim Too Low!

History Repeats Itself And That's Just How It Goes.

History Repeats Itself

Repeating History

The Same Ones You Love Will Bring You Pain.

I Had A Rat-tail When I Was Younger. I Had This Nice Bobby Brown Fade, With A Rat-tail That Was Long Enough To Wrap Around My Face. I Used To Chew On The End And Bite It.

I'm The Type Of Person Where, A., I Look At Things As Challenges, I Like Challenges And, B., I Truly Believe That You Determine Your Own Destiny.

I Wish I Studied More Religions, I Wish I Read The Bible, The Quran. I Think As I Get Older, I Will Start To Really Dive Into Religions, Just Because I Feel Like There's Truths In All Of Those Books. Clearly. I'm Saying There's Truths In All Of Them.

In This Life Ain't No Happy Endings; Only Pure Beginnings Followed By Years Of Sinning And Fake Repentance.

I Gotta Make A Move, I Gotta Do This Now, If They Don't Know Your Dreams, They Can't Shoot 'em Down.

Touring Is Very Routine. You Get To The City, You Go To The Hotel, You Got To Be At The Hotel By A Certain Time - It's Very Routine. I'm Not A Very Structured Person, So When I Get Some Structure, It's Cool; It's Good For Me.

My Fans Love Me For Me, My Beats, My Rhymes.

I Wanna Show You I Can Out-rap Your Favorite Rappers. I Wanna Show You I Can Out-produce Your Favorite Producers. So I'm Constantly Getting Better And I Understand That There's Always Room For Growth, Especially In Quality, Sonic Quality.

College Isn't In Everyone's Hearts. I Am Living Proof, Though, That School Doesn't Mess Up Your Plans. It Gives You More Experiences To Write About.

It's Not Necessarily A Church Theme And It's Not Really About Church. I Like My Album Themes To Be Metaphors Because It Gives Me The Freedom To Speak About Something Else That's Going On In My Life, So The Born Sinner Thing Is Not About Church, It's Not Even About Religion. It's Using That As Canvas To Get Other Messages Across And That's What The Album Will Be.

There's Still Value In A Cd, Even If It's Just Nostalgic. People Are Still Willing To Pay. But It Can't Compare To A Digital-only Release Where You Can Control The Exact Time That It'll Come Out, You Know What I Mean? So Whoever Finds How To Bridge That Gap Is Gonna Make A Lot Of Money.

I Didn't Even Have To Be A Big Fan Of Someone To Enjoy Hearing Them Speak. I Remember When Nikki Giovanni Came - I Wasn't Really Familiar With Her. But She Said Some Things I'll Never Forget. Like, Okay, For Example, She Was Talking About The Amount Of Beef That's In The World. There Are So Many Mcdonald's, Burger Kings, Wendy's.

Either You Play The Game Or Let The Game Play You And Be That Broke Sucka Talkin Bout I Stayed True

I Had A Lot Of Resistance, And Not Just To Fame. I Was Always Conscious Of Not Changing.

Don't Let Bridges You Cross Be Bridges You Burn.

I Was A Class Clown. At 12, I Was Definitely Clowning. I Was Making All The Jokes. But I Was Smart, So The Teachers Didn't Know What To Do With Me.

I Pay Attention To Lyrics And I Know What Rap Fans Care About. I Try To Write For The Average Listener And I'm Conscious Of The Mainstream Without Selling Out.

Anything's Possible, You Gotta Dream Like You Never Seen Obstacles.

If I Was To Go To Sleep Before Midnight, I Would Feel Weird About Myself, Like I Wasted A Day. My Most Productive Hours Are Between Midnight And Five.

I've Always Been An Underdog. I Feel Like I Beat The Odds.

I Don't Live For The Accolades. I'm More So About The Music. Making It, And Putting It Out. Those Are The Two Best Feelings.

I Still Wanna Rap Better Than Everybody Else, And I Wanna Say Important Things.

So Ahead Of My Time Even When I Rhyme About The Future I Be Reminiscing

When You're Headlining, People Are Paying To Come See You Specifically. It's A Different Kind Of Pressure, Because You've Got To Deliver. You've Got To Give These People What They Paid For. It's A Different Mind State, A Different Type Of Mentality, But It's Honestly A Pretty Good Problem To Have, You Know?

I'm A Super-duper Over-analyzer. You Mix That With Self-doubt And Pressure, And That's Never Healthy.

I've Got Two Rolexes That I'm Very Proud Of - A Gold Presidential That Was A Gift And A White Gold One I Gifted Myself. I'm Trying To Step My Game Up And Get A Few More Of Those.

Producing All My Own Songs And Refusing To Go To The Hot Producer. That's The Biggest Risk I've Taken So Far.

You Can't Reverse Fame. You Can Lose All The Money, But You'll Never Lose People Knowing You.

I Was A Huge Mike Tyson Fan Growing Up; His Fights Were Always On In My House.

Sold My Soul To Satan. I've Been Dancing With The Devil. So When You Get To Hell You Can Say You Know Me. I'm Easily Attracted By The Dark Side. Devil Keep Following.

Promise To My Momma I'ma Make It To The Top.. So I'ma Keep Climbing Til My Heartbeat Drop

I Was Inspired By, When I Was In College, Seeing Some Incredible Speakers Come To My School: Michael Eric Dyson, Spike Lee, Nikki Giovanni, And Other Poets And Writers. I Always Loved That Experience: Going And Sitting In An Auditorium And Listening To Their Opinions.

I Think All You Can Really Do Is Use The Tour To Kinda Fill Up With Experiences And Thoughts, And Then, When You Get Back To The Studio, Or In Some Type Of Creative Environment, That's When You Release Everything That You've Encountered On Tour.

There's Always People Out There That's Like, Doubting Me, You Know What I Mean? Even Though I Do Embrace The People That Embrace Me And I'm Grateful For Them. But I Always Feel Like, Man, There's Still People Out There That's Not Giving It Up. And I Feel Like I'm Doing Everything The Right Way, You Know What I Mean? I'm Really Going Out Of My Way To Do It The Right Way. I'm Taking Very Few Cheats - Very Few Cheat Codes That I'm Using.

My Real Dream Is To Have A Whole, Like, Buy A Whole Piece Of Land. Imagine, Like, A Long Driveway. Like, A Cul De Sac-type Street, With Maybe, Like, Seven Houses. Me Be Right Here. Have My Mom Be Able To Be Right Here. My Brother Over Here. My Girl's Grandmother And Family Right Here. Friends Over There. That's My Real Dream.

College Had A Great Deal To Do With My Development As A Person. I Don't Know If I'd Be The Artist I Was If It Wasn't For Goin' To School Like That. School Is A Good Place - It Ain't For Everybody, But I Think It's For Most People.

Rhyme Patterns Are Nothing Without Meanings To The Words. A Lot Of Rappers Can Do Those Flows, But The Raps Aren't Really About Anything - Which Is Cool Sometimes, But To Have The Flow And The Message Is One Of My Favorite Things.

I Don't Wanna Forget The Fact That I Wanna Be One Of The Best Rappers. I Feel Like Some Of The Best Rappers Ever - 2pac, Namely, One Of Them - Could Take Sub-par Beats Or Average Beats And Turn Them Into Incredible Songs.

I Seen A Baby Cry Seconds Later He Laughs... The Beauty Of Life, The Pain Never Lasts.

Even My Momma Asked What I'mma Do. Decisions, Decisions/ In Case This Is War, Then I Load Up On All Ammunition/ If A N----a Want Problems, My Trigger's On Auto.

I'm Already Hot, You Could Say I'm Pre-heated. If Money Talks, Mine's Telling Your's To 'be Seated

My Goal Is To Have That Be A Haven For Families.

I Met Will Smith Twice. I Didn't Talk To Him For Too Long But I Was Trying To Let Him Know That My Age Group Grew Up Watching Him - He Was The Coolest Guy On Television And The Coolest Guy In Movies.

You Hate It Before You Played It. I Already Forgave Ya.

No Rapper In The World From Jay-z To Tupac To Biggie Has 100 Percent Love On Everything They Do.

School Is A Good Place - It Ain't For Everybody, But I Think It's For Most People.

A Lot Of My Music Is Just Self-observation. Like Telling You, "oh Man. What Did I Just Do? How Much Did I Just Pay For This Chain? Why Did I Do That? Wait A Minute." Let Me Talk About That. Or Like, The Temptation. Let Me Talk About That. Let Me Observe Myself.

I Feel Like Relationships Are A Beautiful Thing, Period. Relationships Can Be Really Beautiful, They Can Be Really Hard, They Can Be Really Rewarding, Or They Can Be Bad Relationships Where It's Really Detrimental And Hurtful, But That's Life, Period.

Bad Relationship

I Actually Started Off Majoring In Computer Science, But I Knew Right Away I Wasn't Going To Stay With It. It Was Because I Had This One Professor Who Was The Loneliest, Saddest Man I've Ever Known. He Was A Programmer, And I Knew That I Didn't Want To Do Whatever He Did.

I Don't Like To Think Of It As Being Fired. Instead, I Prefer To Think Of It As Being On Indefinite Leave With A Sabbatical Flair.

I'ma Be Here For A While. None Of These Clowns Can Hurt Me.

I Feel Like This: Whatever Is In Your Path And In Your Heart, You Need To Do.

Usually I Start With A Beat, I Start Making A Beat, And My Producer Side Is Making The Beat. And On A Good Day, My Rapper Side Will Jump In And Start The Writing Process - Maybe Come Up With A Hook Or Start A Verse. Sometimes It Just Happens Like That. A Song Like 'lights Please' Happens Like That.

I Was Just A Goofy Little Funny Kid, Who Was Always Getting Sent To The Principal. It Wasn't Serious Because I Was Smart. I Wasn't Like A True Troublemaker, Just Rambunctious - Like, Talkative And Trying To Be Funny. That Was Me In Middle-school.

Marriage Is Just A Relationship To Me. In My Experience, When You've Been In A Relationship For As Long As I've Been In One, There's No Real Difference. It's Just A Piece Of Paper That Validates What Was Already Real.

When You're A Rapper, Just A Rapper, You Have To Kind Of Settle For Whatever Comes Your Way - If A Beat Is Hot, You Wanna Rap On It, Period.

One Thing You Should Know About Me Is I Never Play To Lose, Always Aim High And Rarely Obey The Rules.

I'll Be Dammed If I Sit Around Another Year, Dreamin' Dreams Hopin' Somehow That They Just Appear.

I Want People To Follow Their Dreams, Yes But I'm Not Interested In Telling Young Black Kids How To Be Rappers I Want To Show Them That There's So Many Other Paths You Can Take, Besides A Rapper Or Basketball Player.

When You're A Producer On Top Of That, Just Havin' A Beat That's Hot Is Not Enough. Now You Know Your Sound, 'cause You've Been Workin' On Your Sound For So Long, And Now You're Extra Picky. You Might Do A Beat That's Ill, That The Average Rapper Would Pay Big Money To Get On, But You Don't Wanna Do It Because You're Like, "ehhh... It's Not What I'm Looking For, It's Not What I'm Goin' For." So You're Extra Picky.

I'm The Same Kid Who Used To Hop The Trains With Headphones And Just Go To Downtown Manhattan, Walk Around And Listen To Music Or Walk Through The City. The Fame Restricts That. It's A Small Complaint In Comparison To The Benefits I Get From It, But The Restrictive Part Is What I Don't Like - And The Fact That It's Not Reversible.

It's No Coincidence That All The Greatest Rappers - Whoever You Put In Your Top Five - I Guarantee You They A Great Storyteller.

When I First Started Rapping, When I Switched My Style To More Like A Punch Line Style - This Is When I'm Like 13 Years Old - And I Switched It To This Real Wordy - I Was Trying To Rap Like Canibus And Like Eminem. It Was Real Lyrical, Real Wordy And Punch Lines And, When I Would Come Up With These Punch Lines And Spit 'em In These Cyphers, The Minute The Cyphers Would Be Like, "ohhh" And Everybody Would Break Away, It Was A New Feeling For Me. It Was Like, "oh, Yo, You See What I Just Did?" I Was Addicted To That Feeling, And I Still Love That Feeling.

If I Lost Your Respect...i'm Just Hope You Don't Look At Me As Something You Regret.

I Yearn For That Livin' Large, But Mama I Ain't Done Yet/sit Back And Watch Your Son Rise, Kick Back And Know Your Son Set

You Go To Any Town, Any City, Any State In America And There's Always A Mcdonald's. In A Lot Of Places Around The World, It's Almost The Same Thing. And Nikki Giovanni Was Like, "damn, Where Are We Keeping All These Cows?" And It Made Me Think To Myself, Like, "damn, Where Are We Keeping All These Cows?!" It Makes Me Think That The Beef We're Eating Isn't Even Close To Being Real. There Can't Even Be Enough Cows In The Whole World Just To Sustain The Appetites Of Just Americans! I'll Always Remember That.

Barack Obama Would Not Be President If He Were Dark Skin. You Know What I Mean? That's Just The Truth. I Might Not Be As Successful As I Am Now If I Was Dark Skin.

My Mother's An Actress, And She's Always Told Me, "boy, You're An Actor." I Would Look Forward To Seeing If I'm Any Good. I Want To Be Good At It, That's The Only Thing.

I Now Possess The Tools As A Producer And A Songwriter To Really Just Go Out And Make Smashes All Day Long. I Could Make An Album Full Of Smash Records That Got Pop Appeal. But My Heart Is In Hip-hop. My Heart Is In Telling Stories. And It's Like Therapy For Me.

We Got Dreams And We Got The Right To Chase 'em, Look At The Nation, That's A Crooked Smile Braces Couldn't Even Straighten.

If I'm A Character, It's A Biographical Movie. My Character Is As Close To Me As Possible. As Close To Being Myself As Possible. So My Character, J. Cole, Is Very Close To Jermaine Cole.

While Silly Ni**as Argue Over Who Gon' Snatch The Crown / Look Around My Ni**a, White People Have Snatched The Sound / This Year I'll Probably Go To The Awards Dappered Down / Watch Iggy Win A Grammy As I Try To Crack A Smile.

I Was A Super-duper Tupac Fan, And I Realized Later, When I Became A Huge Nas Fan And A Huge Eminem Fan, I Was Drawn To The Storytellers. They All Told Stories In Different Ways, But They Were All Like The Best Storytellers.

The Thing About Being An Artist Today Is You Get To Develop Right In Front Of People's Eyes Before You Even Put Out An Album.

In Hip-hop, There's Not A Lot Of Love. There's Not A Lot Of Love Being Spread. It's Always Like 'i'm Stuntin' On You Raps, Or I'm Better Than You Raps.' It's Not A Lot Of 'yo Man, I Idolize You Raps.'

When I Was In College My Girl Got Me A Job At The Doctor's Office She Was Working At. I Was A File Clerk. No Disrespect But I Don't Think A Man Can Do That Job. It Takes So Much Meticulous And Precise File-keeping.

I Just Feel Like, With Rappers, There's So Much Complacency. It's Like, 'oh, I'm A Rapper. I'm Successful. I Make Money. That's All That Matters.' But There's A Lot Of Stuff Going On In The World. Whether Or Not You're Aware Of It, It's Happening.

Sold My Soul To Satan. I've Been Dancing With The Devil. So When You Get To Hell You Can Say You Know Me. I'm Easily Attracted By The Dark Side. Devil Keep Following. For That Fortune, Some Sold Their Soul To Satan. Was On Track For The First Two Years, Then I Let The Devil Steer. Now I Got To Mask My Tears, But Allow Me To Re-introduce Myself, My Name Is Cole: Born Sinner, Opposite Of A Winner. But The Devil Run The T.v. So The Demons In Him, I'm In Trouble Did A Deal With The Devil But Now I'm Pleading With Him Like Give Me My Soul. I Ain't Ever Letting Go But The Devil Don't Play Fair.

I Worked In Ad Sales. I Would Call Up Local Businesses And Try To Get Them To Buy Ads In The Paper. The Whole Time, I Felt Like I Was Just Scamming People.

You Are Perfect Exactly As You Are. With All Your Flaws And Problems, There's No Need To Change Anything. All You Need To Change Is The Thought That You Aren't Good Enough.

I Do Put A Lot Of God In My Music, But Not Because I'm Super Religious. There Are A Lot Of Demons In My Music, Too. I Acknowledge Both.

Keep Grindin' Boy, Your Life Can Change In One Year, And Even When It's Dark Out, The Sun Is Shining Somewhere

Get On Yo Job Little Man This Ain't Saturday

I'm Here To Spread A Message Of Hope. Follow Your Heart. Don't Follow What You've Been Told You're Supposed To Do.

Message Of Hope

I Want To Be Like Bruce Springsteen Or Something, Making Songs That Are Relevant.

I Never Really Told Anybody That I'm A Rapper. I Wasn't Walking Around Being Like, "yo, Check Out My Mixtape!" It Was More Of A Secret Grind.

How Big Can You Be If Just The Underground Niggas Know You? You Can't Buy Your Mom A House When You Just An Underground Celebrity.

Tupac Was Just So Passionate About What He Believes In And Not Afraid To Say Anything.

I Always Feel Like It's Two Key Ingredients When It Comes To Following Your Dreams, Making Something Happen That The Average Person Deems Difficult. If You Truly Believe It, That's Step One. Step Two, Is, You Know, The Hard Work That Goes Along With It.

When Composing Music, I Just Start Spilling Things Out And Then Wait Until They Take Form, You Know What I Mean, Until I See Like A Common Thread Or Something.

I Put A Lot Of Pressure On Myself. I Think Something's Not Good Enough, And I Won't Stop Until I Feel Like I've Made It. I'm Never Satisfied.

Not Good Enough

It's The Way I Enjoy Making Art - I Like Sitting Down And Making Five Beats; I Enjoy That Process. I Can Go Two Weeks Without Making A Song And Just Making Beats And I'll Be Ok.

I Struggled With Being A Broke College Graduate, And While All My Friends Were Getting Career Jobs, I Was Working Horrible Part-time Jobs. That's Why Now, Even When I Get Tired, I Think, 'this Is What I Asked For.'

One Day, I'll Be Listening To A Bunch Of Ray Charles, The Next Day It's Nothing But Red Hot Chili Peppers. The Next Day It Might Be Tupac All Day.

They Say Time Is Money But Really It's Not If We Ever Go Broke, Then Time Is All We Got And We Can't Make That Back, No You Can't Make That Back

You Can't Take Yourself Too Seriously. Like, Yeah, I'm Doin' All That, But Still I Don't Feel Like I've Done Anything, Really. I Feel Blessed 'cause I'm Doin' All These Things, But I'm Not Satisfied. I Still Have That Feeling Like, "who Am I? Who Am I To Have An Ego? Who Am I To Change Up And Act Like Some Hollywood Character?" Technically, In The Grand Scheme Of Things, I Haven't Done Anything.

My Parents Were Divorced By The Time I Was Even Conscious - Like I Don't Remember Them Ever Being Together.

Don't Worry, Even Jesus Never Saw His Real Father

Sometimes I Try A Mai Tai. It's So Fruity. It's A Little Embarrassing, But I Like It.

Believe In God Like The Sun Up In The Sky, See Science Can Tell Us How But It Can't Tell Us Why. I Seen A Baby Cry Then Seconds Later She Laughed, The Beauty Of Life The Pain Never Lasts.

Far From The Richest Rapper, But My Biggest Personal Achievement Thus Far In My Life Has Been Retiring My Mom Early From Her Job At The Post Office. It's A Tiny Payback For The Sacrifices She Made That Allowed Me To Chase A Far-fetched Dream Of Becoming A Successful Artist. I'm Forever Grateful.

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