Kelo Soul, the rapper who freestyled for J. Cole, dropped the rap as an official single and used a still from the video for its cover art.
In the clip, which can be seen below, Cole was clearly feeling Kelo’s freestyle as he listened from his car. At the end of the video, Cole dapped him up and said, “My n***a, you put music out?” Kelo confirmed as much and told him where he could check out his music. “Aye bro, you talented,” said Cole.
The recorded version of the freestyle features relaxed, sample-centric boom-bap production that complements Soul’s approach to rap. In addition to the verse he rapped for Cole, the finished version also features a second verse that builds on the pop culture references and autobiographical lyrics in the first half. It’s easy to see what Cole, who recently dropped his new album The Fall-Off, sees in Kelo Soul.
The two-time Grammy winner has always been big on showing love to his fans, and with the arrival of his latest album, which he indicated could be his last, he’s celebrating by getting up close and personal with them. After showing up to an album listening event in his hometown of Fayetteville, North Carolina, he announced that he would be selling physical copies from the trunk of his car.
“Yesterday I had daddy duties that came before album release celebrations,” he tweeted last week. “Today I got my old civic (with the brand new engine) a tour bus and some sprinters. In the trunk of my car is boxes of The Fall-Off CD’s. As a teenager I had copies of the Fayettenam Bommuh’s album that Nervous gave me to sell. I used to go up to the gas stations trying to sell the album to strangers ‘yo you like hip hop??’ Was the beginning of the sales pitch.”