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J. Cole raised eyebrows with his polarizing song ‘Fire Squad,’ where he mentions Justin Timberlake, Iggy Azalea and Eminem in his lyrics about white entertainers dominating hip-hop and other aspects of black music. While many have interpreted the lyrics as a diss, Cole cleared it all up during his interview on Power 105.1′s Angie Martinez Show.
The Roc Nation artist revealed that his rhymes were based on an observation influenced by his interpretation of American capitalism.
“‘J. Cole Disses Eminem and Iggy…’ Why does the headline even exist,” Cole said before he and Angie broke down the dynamics of the click-bait headlines. “It’s not true.”
In fact, according to Cole, Eminem is one of few rappers to make his “idols” list. But after an eye-opening browse to iTunes’ jazz section and discovering “the entire page of iTunes Jazz is 99.7% white people,” he was prompted to put into context on ‘Fire Squad.’
“That has nothing to do with dissing Eminem or dissing any of those people,” he explains. “That part of the verse is an observation, me making an observation of culture right now, what’s happening.”
For Cole, he sees not only music changing but hip-hop changing, in particular.
“I’ll fast forward 20, 30 years from now, and I see hip-hop being completely white,” he said.
Do you share J. Cole’s opinion about hip-hop? Tell us in the comments below.
Listen to J. Cole’s Song ‘Fire Squad’
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