[TWV x 2DBz Exclusive] J. Cole: The Soul Of Cole Part 2

In part 1 of our three part sit down interview with J. Cole, the Roc Nation emcee discussed his latest mixtape “Friday Night Lights.” In part two, Cole takes us back to the beginning and explains why he made a conscious decision to not tell anyone that he was a rapper.

“I had rap friends and then I had regular, real life ‘Jermaine’ friends,” Cole recalls. “The ‘Jermaine’ friends didn’t even learn I was rapping until my senior year in high school. In college it was the same thing all over again. I was so on the low with it. Mind you, I was working extra hard behind the scenes but on the surface I just never put it out there.”

But Cole leading a double life was difficult for the student/basketball player by day and emcee by night. Although his close friends didn’t know it, Cole was building a resume as an emcee under the rap moniker “Therapist.” It wouldn’t be long before the word got out once his peers figured out the voice on an album called Fayettenam Bommuhs was his.

“When I was in high school I was on this local rap album called Fayettnam Bommuhs and I was on there twice (check out “The Storm” and “Bref Control” here),” the 25-year-old says about rapping back in 2002. “There was this girl who was on the cheerleader team while I was playing basketball. She came on the bus and said ‘Cole I didn’t know you rapped!” Somehow she got a hold of the CD and from there she let a lot of people in our school know. That was the first moment that the regular life got caught up in the rap life.”

From that point, Cole was known as the rhymeslinging emcee rather than just being Jermaine Lemarr Cole. A star was being birthed right in front of everyone’s eyes. But if you left it up to Cole, nobody would have ever known that he shredded mics on the regular. One incident, in particular, kept Cole from letting his peers know who he really was.

“I remember being in 9th grade and there was this 10th or 11th grade kid and we were walking to lunch together. He was like ‘I just got signed to Universal!’” Cole laughs as he reflects. “He was lying! Blatantly lying! And I could tell, even as a 14-year-old.”

J. Cole laughs as he recalls the fibbing wannabe that strolled the halls while boasting about a label who had no idea who he was. But then things got serious when he noticed how pitiful the rapper looked. And that’s when Cole decided to keep his mic skills under his hat for as long as he could.

“I remember these two dudes were walking behind us and they were laughing at him,” he continues. “They could tell he was lying. From that point, and even before that, I just didn’t want to be taken as that guy that says ‘I rap!’ Everybody raps. I prefer you find out later and be like ‘Oh, that was that dude!’ I prefer that reaction.”