J. Cole raps about his life in reverse on his latest single, “Disc 2 Track 2” – an approach he admits was challenging for him. In a clip shared from an interview with Timmhotep Aku, he talks about the process of putting the song together.
“That was so much time spent downstairs in my crib in the studio while the kids are at school,” Cole explains. “Sitting in one spot, like putting a puzzle together. So enjoyable. Took so much time. I don’t say that to say it was, like, work. It was like putting a puzzle together to challenge myself.”
He tells Aku that when the song began to come together, he started to “get excited and scared simultaneously.”
“I get excited because I go, ‘What if? What if you could do this whole rhyme about your life story in reverse, but you gotta keep – I’m setting rules. You can’t cheat. You gotta keep four syllables minimum. What if?"” Cole recalls. “And I get excited, because I’m like, that would be so amazing. But then the fear comes in, almost a voice like, ‘Don’t try it, n****. Why? You know that’s not possible."”
He says he gave himself an ultimatum to either stop or “take the mission,” and decided to go with the latter option.
Cole also talks about the happiness he felt as the lyrics came to him, the fear of wondering whether he’d be able to come up with enough rhymes and the joy that came when the record was complete.
“Those moments, writing it? That’s the #1 experience,” he says, adding the actual release pales in comparison to the recording process. “The reactions are at the bottom of the pole … because no fulfillment comes from that.”
“Disc 2 Track 2” was released following the announcement of The Fall-Off, which is set to arrive on Feb. 6.
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