One of J. Cole’s hotter tracks from KOD was the T-Minus and Mark Pelli-produced cut “Kevin’s Heart,” which is also the only song that doesn’t feature any production or co-production credit from Cole himself.
On Tuesday, T-Minus revealed the story behind the making of that song with DJBooth. He shared, “I’ve been sending J. Cole music over the past year or so. It kinda just happened through the texting game; it's more of a direct way to get the music to the artists. I was just talking with him about working, sending him beats and he just so happened to go on vacation for about two to three weeks.”
While T-Minus knew Cole was working on KOD, he didn’t know Cole was on vacation. So T-Minus sent the beat over anyway, and it just happened to be at the right time: Cole “grabbed it and was like, ‘Yo, I’m gonna use this for my project.’ I had no clue that he was working on KOD. It just worked out perfectly.”
T-Minus continued, “[Cole] wasn’t in the studio with anybody in particular. He was just creating his own tracks, making his own beats. So that’s why I’m one of the only other producers on the project.”
T-Minus made the beat in October 2017 with Pelli and afterward, T-Minus immediately believed it would be a good beat for Cole. “I sent it to [Cole] and he just snapped. It was crazy how it all unfolded. It was such a natural flow.”
T-Minus also shared some backstory about the song’s video. “I met with Cole a few months after I sent him the track. He played me the record and he told me he wanted to get Kevin Hart in the video. “He had this huge vision for the song,” he said, adding, “Man, I love the video. The message is so relatable. And seeing Kevin Hart supporting the record is dope in itself. I love the video, I love the story, I love how they captured Kevin in his environment during a situation like what he went through.”
If you haven’t seen the video for “Kevin’s Heart,” starring Kevin Hart, check it out above.
