J. Cole won’t play his favorite rap songs for his kids because of the subject matter.
During the rapper’s interview with Apple Music’s Nadeska Alexis about his latest album, The Fall-Off that took place at his childhood home at 2014 Forest Hills Drive in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Cole opened up about the hip-hop his stepfather played for him as a kid, and explained why he won’t share the rap he loves with his children.
“I’m very grateful that I grew up in this house with my mom, and eventually my stepfather, who had no regard for what the fuck I heard or watched,” Cole said. “I got a stepfather that put me on to ‘Pac at six, seven years old. Thank God, but I can’t do that.”
Cole continued, explaining that he heard “straight gangsta rap” like Ice-T and Ice Cube as a kid via his stepfather. As much as he still values those experiences, he admitted that he’s not “comfortable” doing the same thing with his own two children.
“I don’t know if it’s right or wrong,” Cole said. “I’m not comfortable playing my favorite songs around my kids yet because the content is sexual, it’s violent.”
Alexis, who said she has “two little kids” of her own, was sympathetic to Cole’s plight.
Check out Cole’s comments around the 58:30 mark in the interview below.
Elsewhere in the same interview, Cole revealed how the idea of a public apology to Kendrick Lamar, after dissing him in 2024, came to him an hour before performing at Dreamville Fest.
"It hit me an hour before [hitting the stage]," Cole explained. "Before that, I was stressing the fuck out. Then the moment for the idea came to me like a guide, and I lifted, and I got light, and I got excited. I got so excited because to tell you, three or four days before that it was like, 'Oh my, nah, this is terrible.' Because I felt like I misrepresented myself. You know what I mean?"
"I felt miserable about it," he continued. "So I'm like, 'Oh my God, I gotta go on this stage and come out here and pretend almost. Like, people think that I'm representing that.' Might Delete Later had just dropped…the drama of all of this is the biggest news happening, and I'm coming out as a representative of what the fuck they just heard.”
