Beef is driving hip-hop’s success this year; the impact of J. Cole’s apology (and his bow-out) is real

(April 13, 2024).  Superstar rapper J. Cole — largely considered one of the Big Three MCs of this generation (along with Drake and Kendrick Lamar) — did the unthinkable earlier this week.

He apologized for a diss track he included on his latest mixtape — Might Delete Later — and then he did just that: deleted it.

The song in question was “7 Minute Drill,” a tune that was actually only about half that time in length, in which the Fayetteville, NC rapper issued a response to Lamar’s diss line contained in Future & Metro Boomin’s No. 1 hit “Like That,” where Kendrick essentially removed both J. Cole and Drake from any talk of a “Big Three” by boasting that there was really just a “Big Me.”

Lamar’s stray shot was itself a reaction to the song “First Person Shooter” on Drake’s last album For All the Dogs, where both Drizzy and featured guest Cole essentially boasted about being GOATs while pondering who among the “Big Three” MCs was indeed the hardest rapper.

After just one full week on the market (and five days after issuing his apology for recording it), Cole removed “7 Minute Drill” from digital streaming providers like Spotify and Apple Music, but you can still access the song on YouTube (below), at least before copyright protections take effect.

But the unthinkable part wasn’t the track’s deletion from DSPs or even what was said in it.

Instead, it was Cole’s apology for what many considered a half-baked response to Lamar’s quick jab.  In the ego-driven, hypermasculine world of hip-hop, you see, rappers rarely apologize for dissing another MC, especially when doing so in retaliation for that rapper’s initial attack. What’s more, hip-hop’s diehards were hoping Cole’s comeback was the beginning of an all-out war between the genre’s true generals.

Cole’s surprise diss track against Kendrick had mainly targeted the “HUMBLE.” rapper’s spotty discography, implying that K-dot couldn’t be among the greatest when he’s not as prolific as others (to this point, Drake, as an example, releases at least one album every year while we’re lucky if we get one every four years from Lamar).

The track for which Cole was apologizing was tepid by many accounts. It wasn’t like he went after Kendrick’s height or his baby mama, or even worse, his mama.  Instead, “7 Minute Drill” kept it old school, making the battle simply about who was the best MC with better rhymes and the most bangers.

Still, it didn’t sit right with Cole who, at his Dreamville Festival last Sunday (just two days after releasing it), told a crowd that he regretted recording the song while calling it the “lamest shit I did in my fucking life.”

“That shit don’t sit right with my spirit,” he said. “That shit disrupts my fucking peace. So what I want to say right here tonight is in the midst of me doing that and in that shit, trying to find a little angle and downplay this n-a’s fucking catalog and his greatness, I want to say right now tonight, how many people think Kendrick Lamar is one of the greatest motherfuckers to ever touch a fucking microphone? Dreamville, y’all love Kendrick Lamar, correct? As do I.”

Cole continued heaping praise on the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lamar while denouncing his own move as “lame” and “goofy” and praying that God would line him back up on his “purpose” and his “path” in life.  

Whoa!  Noble words indeed.

But whatever internal peace J. Cole achieved through his apology and subsequent removal of the offensive (mostly to himself) track has not resonated within the hip-hop community.  While some have praised Cole’s apparent maturity, many bloggers, fans and fellow rappers (and even sports analysts like Stephen A. Smith) have spent the better part of a week analyzing and/or criticizing Cole’s decisions with most calling the apology a career fumble.

Some are even going as far as to suggest that his apology automatically removes him from future GOAT discussions while others predict it’s the beginning of his “fall off” (the prophetic title of his next full-length studio album, forecast on Drake’s “First Person Shooter” last year).

Others are questioning Cole’s integrity by suggesting that if he was really so spiritually enlightened he wouldn’t have succumbed to pressure and released “7 Minute Drill” in the first place.  He would have taken the high road from the get-go and let Lamar’s “Big Me” dig fade into oblivion.

Worse still, on the same day that Cole deleted “Drill” from his mixtape (thank goodness artists in the pre-digital age didn’t have that option, right?), he appeared on the new song “Red Leather” from Future and Metro’s We Still Don’t Trust You, the just-released followup to We Don’t Trust You, the three-week-old album containing “Like That” featuring Lamar.

In other words, it appears that Cole didn’t just reach some level of atonement, but he quickly switched allegiances – from Drake with whom he paired himself on “First Person Shooter” to Future and Metro Boomin, the apparent curators of this year’s major beefs among rap’s current titans.

All of this may be confusing to hip-hop heads who believe that loyalty trumps everything when it comes to rap beefs.  It’s the whole IDFWPWFWPWIDFW mantra.  Why would J. Cole clear a verse on an album by Future and Metro who just three weeks earlier masterminded the diss track containing Lamar’s fiery missive?

Whatever the reason, none of this seems to be working out well for Cole — aside from the rapper getting more social media mentions in the past week than anyone not named O.J. or Trump.  His week-old mixtape Might Delete Later appears headed for a No. 2 debut on next week’s Billboard 200, behind Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, which will spend a second week at No. 1.

And there appears to be a clear nexus between Cole’s runner-up chart status and his peace-offering to Kendrick.

Before issuing his apology last Sunday, Might Delete Later was trending to beat Cowboy Carter and debut at No. 1, which would have made it Cole’s seventh solo No. 1 album (and his eighth overall counting a Dreamville collaboration).

Might Delete Later had a projected lead of more than 7,000 units but now appears to be trailing Bey’s country deep-dive by more than ten thousand units in the tracking week that ended Thursday night (April 11). 

Notably, “7 Minute Drill” wasn’t deleted until after the chart’s tracking week ended, meaning the No. 2 fate of Might Delete Later was sealed before its top song was removed from DSPs.

So, one now has to wonder whether and how much Cole’s walk-back of “Drill” cut into fans’ consumption of the track and its parent mixtape.

It would be one thing if Cole’s apology had been for hitting Lamar too far below the belt, a scenario that might have actually driven his song’s clicks even higher in this toxic era where super fans seemingly live and die by how well their artists one-up famous rivals.

It’s another when a rapper apologizes for even issuing a diss, one he didn’t mean and one that was done halfheartedly in the first place.  Fans apparently immediately began to tune out when they felt Cole’s head was no longer in this beef game.

Not only will Might Delete Later miss out on the No. 1 album debut, but its key track “7 Minute Drill” will settle for an entry in the lower half of the top ten of the Hot 100, which is expected to be led for the third consecutive week by Future/Metro/Kendrick’s “Like That.”

That beef-driven tune will become the first song in 2024 to rule the Hot 100 for three-straight weeks (and the first since last summer’s “Last Night” by Morgan Wallen’s to bag three or more consecutive frames at the top).

After a pretty lackluster 2023 in which fewer than the normal number of rap albums and singles topped the charts — ironically also a year in which the genre celebrated its golden anniversary (many times) — hip-hop certainly needed a shot in the arm.

The nascent year that is 2024 has proven to be just what the doctor ordered.  And viral beefs appear to be the biggest driver.  

In just over three months, hip-hop has already accounted for three new No. 1 singles and three new No. 1 albums by rappers serving in lead roles.

They include Billboard Hot 100-topping singles by Megan Thee Stallion, Kanye West/Ty Dolla $ign, and Future/Metro Boomin (with Megan’s “Hiss” and the aforementioned “Like That” garnering the Hot 100’s highest first-week point totals so far in 2024); plus albums by 21 Savage, Ye/Ty and Future/Metro that have topped the Billboard 200. (Future & Metro Boomin’s follow-up We Still Don’t Trust You is already trending to become the year’s fourth before April ends).

That’s six new No. 1 titles since the first of January, verses zero at this time last year.   

Notably last year, hip-hop didn’t achieve its first No. 1 by a rapper in a lead role on either the album or singles chart until mid-July when Lil Uzi Vert’s Pink Tape crowned the album list.

The first No. 1 rap single didn’t occur until September when Doja Cat’s “Paint the Town Red” took the penthouse spot on the Hot 100.

This year’s first new No. 1 single by a rapper was “Hiss,” a zinger that wouldn’t have even whiffed the Hot 100’s top spot had it not been for Megan’s below-the-belt “Megan’s Law” hit at Nicki Minaj’s husband — a registered sex offender in California — and, more importantly, Nicki’s reaction to it.

The tune debuted at No. 1 in February and was completely off the chart before March ended.  

The second rap No. 1 came via Kanye’s & Ty’s “Carnival,” an anthem in which Ye name-drops several controversial celebrities, most notably his longtime nemesis Taylor Swift (although it wasn’t a true diss, it certainly garnered the song more attention than it might have otherwise received given their toxic relationship).

The third and current No. 1 is “Like That” featuring Lamar.

And the fun isn’t expected to end there.

Drake, who has largely been silent in the midst of multiple attacks (and disloyalty) from other rappers, is rumored to have already leaked a diss track targeting Future, Metro, Kendrick and yes, J. Cole, among others.

Yep, it appears the fun spectator sport that is hip-hop and all its many beefs continues to entertain (as long as it remains a war of silly metaphors and not something more serious or violent).

It’s just too bad J. Cole — who will now have to draw his energy from something other than the latest beef with fellow superstar MCs — could find himself missing out on some of that smoke… at least when it comes to the ever changing race for the top of the hip-hop food chain.

Or maybe, for peace of mind’s sake, he did the right thing.

Hmmm.

Here’s Hip-Hop’s No. 1 leaderboard after Future and Metro Boomin’s expected debut at No. 1 with their We Still Don’t Trust You in two weeks (chart date April 27):

DJRob

DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff!  You can follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog and on Meta’s Threads.

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