Everything We Learned From J. Cole's In-Depth Interview With Angie Martinez

"Really the only thing I consistently do is, like, I do my breathing," Cole, around the 4:15 mark, said of his pre-show routine. "I try to do like a meditation before I go on. Am I good at it? It depends. I don't know. It works for me." All told, Cole only looks to carve out about five minutes of head-clearing time before a performance. He also praised his occasional use of meditation for its ability to help him with general anxiety.

"I'm a dangerous interview because, it's hard for me to lie," Cole told Martinez later on during their discussion. "I can't lie. Not only is it hard for me to lie, it's hard for me to not go in on the whole truth. Once I tell you something, I gotta make sure you know exactly what I'm talking about and give you the full perspective."

After explaining his decision to pull back on drinking, Cole likened the experience to how he needs to approach social media in the future. "With social media, I was off it for so long that I thought I had beat this addiction, I had beat this thing, and then I got back on it and realized 'Nah, you just took a break,'" he said. "The fix in the past was just 'I'm getting off this shit.' I think the fix right now is, nah, let me get on it and figure out, to feel, to become conscious of the pull."

About 40 minutes deep into the interview, Cole was asked to speak on the long-rumored Kendrick Lamar x J. Cole project. Though both artists were definitely in the studio together years ago, as Cole explained, the rumored project isn't quite a reality. "We did a bunch of ideas, put it like that," he said. "You wouldn't call it an album, nothing like that . . . It's not like, this is something that's actively happening."

Kanye West, during his recent (and seemingly paused) Trumpian praise, shared a screenshot of a conversation he had with Cole. According to Cole, the tweeted announcement of their chat was a surprise to him. "He called me, but I would have never posted that or, like, tell him to post that," he said. "That made me feel a certain type of way. I told him that. He apologized, for the record." Cole added that it felt like West just used his name "for social media" and "wasn't sincere." On the topic of "False Prophets," Cole said anything he says about West comes from the perspective of someone who was a "back in the day" fan. "There's one verse that applies to him for sure, but if you listen to that song, that song is about what this shit is exposing," he said

"I feel like, a thousand years from now there won't even be celebrities," Cole said when asked about separating the art from the artist, a concept for which Martinez used West's recent actions as an example. "A thousand, two thousand, who knows."

Despite the lyrical content of "1985," and the prevalence of "Fuck J. Cole!" chants at Smokepurpp shows, Cole still listens to younger artists' music. "I love them," Cole said, presumably including Lil Pump in that sentiment. "First of all, I fuck with them. I actually fuck with they music. It's not like I drive around listening to it, but I've spent time listening and being like 'Yo, this is fun.' It ain't about shit and it don't matter but this is fun."