BTS’ j-hope Calls J. Cole His ‘GOAT,’ Congratulates Rapper on ‘Crazy’ New Album

J. Cole will never fall off in j-hope‘s eyes. During a recent livestream on Weverse, the BTS member congratulated his friend and collaborator on dropping new album The Fall-Off, saying the project “went crazy.”

During the stream — which happened on the K-pop star’s Feb. 18 birthday — he gives the rapper a sweet shout-out. “Congrats on the album, Cole hyung,” the K-pop performer tells the camera. (In Korean, “hyung” is a brotherly term used by men to address a close elder male, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.)

“Album went crazy for real!” j-hope continues with a big smile. “You will always be my GOAT. Thank you, brother. Much love to you.”

J. Cole dropped The Fall-Off on Feb. 6, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. The project charted 21 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, bringing the hip-hop star’s career total entries on the tally to 111 — making him just the 22nd artist to notch more than 100.

But even if the album hadn’t done as well as it did commercially, j-hope still would’ve been in J. Cole’s corner. The pair go way back, collaborating on 2023 single “On the Street” after first meeting at Lollapalooza the year prior. The South Korean singer-rapper had been a fan of Cole since he was a teenager, though, and in 2013, BTS reinterpreted Cole’s “Born Sinner” into a new track called “Born Singer,” which the North Carolina artist personally approved for release on the boy band’s Proof anthology.

Now that The Fall-Off is out in the world, it’s BTS’ turn to release an album. The septet is gearing up to drop Arirang on March 20 after spending a couple of years apart working solo projects and completing service time in the South Korean military.

This article was first published by Billboard U.S.