J. Cole has been accused of “switching up” on Drake by appearing on the new album from the 6 God’s apparent foes Future and Metro Boomin.
We Still Don’t Trust You — the follow-up to last month’s explosive We Don’t Trust You — arrived on Friday (April 12) and contains a surprise feature from Cole on the song “Red Leather.”
On the R&B-flavored track, the Dreamville boss brags about his legacy, rapping: “2I can’t stop right now, they gon’ remember me forever/ My story’s more clever, my similes was better/ My energy was never on some toughest n-gga shit/ I was just a conscious rapper that would fuck a n-gga bitch.”
The married father of two also namedrops fellow rapper and OnlyFans star Rubi Rose while mulling over the concept of monogamy.
“Coppin’ all this liquor for these hoes like we McLovin/ Thinkin’ to myself, ‘Could I really be with one woman?’/ Hmm, I think so/ But it’s hard when you with your dogs at the freak show/ Thinkin’ I could bag Rubi Rose with a keystroke/ Ego, ask yourself is that gon’ bring you peace, though?” he spits.
Listen to it below.
Although J. Cole doesn’t explicitly reference the recent drama surrounding himself, Drake and Kendrick Lamar, many took his cameo on the album as a betrayal to Drake given both Kendrick and Future took aim at the Canadian hitmaker on its predecessor.
Complicating matters further, We Still Don’t Trust You contains more shots at Drizzy courtesy of A$AP Rocky and The Weeknd.
“J Cole Linking with the opps now ? The switch up is crazy,” one person wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Another shared a video of a distraught LeBron James along with the caption: “Drake seeing The Weeknd & A$AP Rocky diss him when he’s not even finished addressing Kendrick, Metro & Future. And the icing on the cake is J Cole featured on the album as well.”
Others made light of the perceived betrayal by posting memes from the WWE and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
Drake seeing The Weeknd & A$AP Rocky diss him when he’s not even finished addressing Kendrick, Metro & Future. And the icing on the cake is J Cole featured on the album as well pic.twitter.com/iBOJYt3BMm
— Ye Streams (@kanyestreams1) April 12, 2024
Drake finding out J Cole is on Red Leather #WeSTILLDontTrustYoupic.twitter.com/TcXgj74kq4
— Zak (@zakeekinlaw) April 12, 2024
Drake: We gotta get them backJ Cole:#WeSTILLDontTrustYoupic.twitter.com/kSYxxfyNtp
— “J” (@j__43_) April 12, 2024
Prior to “Red Leather,” J. Cole was viewed as Drake’s most powerful ally, with the pair teaming up on the hit single “First Person Shooter” and performing together on the It’s All a Blur — Big As the What? Tour.
The North Carolina native was also first to respond to Kendrick Lamar’s blistering verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That,” firing back on “7 Minute Drill.”
Just days later, however, retracted the diss song and apologized to the Compton rap star during his performance at Dreamville Festival — much to the disapproval of many in Hip Hop.
After the controversial apology, it was claimed by podcaster Mal that “7 Minute Drill” had made Drake hesitant to share the stage with Cole at his aforementioned festival.
Drake & J. Cole’s Contrasting Stances On Rap ‘Competition’ Highlighted In Tour Whiteboard
“He might get mad at me for talking about but he knows he’s my n-gga. I asked Drake one question. I said, ‘Yo, you going to Dream Fest this weekend?’” the New Rory & Mal co-host said.
“And he gave me an answer that was kind of weird Friday night hearing it, but Sunday night it made all the sense in the world. He says, ‘I don’t know, should I? ‘Cause it’s weird right now. Are we performing the record? Can we ever perform ‘First Person Shooter’?’”
Mal continued to relay Drake’s response, seemingly in his own words: “He has to change the bar now. He has to shit on Kendrick now. So we gonna shit on Kendrick every time we do the record? Nobody wants to hear us together unless we dissing Kendrick.”
Drake has yet to directly respond to the recent lyrical darts thrown his way, nor J. Cole working with Future and Metro, but there is talk he’s readying a “nuclear” diss song against his growing number of enemies.
