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Wesley Mann
J. Cole photographed on Aug. 16, 2018 at The Silo in Houston for a Billboard cover shoot.
Rb Hip Hop
J. Cole Shows Love to Drake, Drake and Kendrick Lamar Feud in New Song, 'Port Antonio'
"My friends went to war, I walked away with all their blood on me," he raps. Drake reportedly liked Cole's initial Instagram post dropping the track, which references him by name.
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J. Cole was a key player in the beginning stages of the Drake and Kendrick Lamar beef, but dropped out early after removing his Kendrick diss track '7 Minute Drill' from streaming services.
Now, J. Cole has broken his silence over the feud in his new song "Port Antonio," which he dropped last night (Oct. 9).
Cole, who was referenced as one of the "Big Three" rappers along with Drake and Kendrick in the verse that reignited the beef, tells the whole story of the feud from his perspective over five dense minutes.
While the war of words intensified, many memes depicted Cole as the peaceful one, sipping drinks on a beach while his peers tore each other apart.
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On "Port Antonio," he addresses that conception head-on: "I pulled the plug because I've seen where this was 'bout to go / They wanted blood, they wanted clicks to make they pockets grow / They see this fire in my pen and think I'm dodgin' smoke / I wouldn't have lost a battle, dawg, I woulda lost a bro / I woulda gained a foe."
But he didn't come away unscathed, he notes: "My friends went to war, I walked away with all they blood on me."
He pushes back against the conception that he was ever picking sides, but shows direct support to Drake. "Drake, you'll always be my n—a / I ain't ashamed to say you did a lot for me," he raps.
Drake took notice, liking J. Cole's Instagram post dropping the track.
Cole uses a friend's metaphor to compare his lyrics to a gun, but says a gun isn't what he wants to be. The beef, and its winners and losers, are inconsequential to their overall purpose as artists, he raps — "not for beefing" but for "speakin' our thoughts, pushin' ourselves, reachin' the charts," and connecting with people on an emotional and intellectual level.
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Listen to "Port Antonio" below:
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