Anderson .Paak's excellent new album Oxnard is out now, featuring a run of collaborators on the back half that's exhilarating in its diversity. One of those collabs is with J. Cole, who joined .Paak and other Oxnard collaborators via phone on a new episode of .Paak House Radio Friday.
For Cole, he felt compelled that their collab—"Trippy"—was simply meant to be. "I don't know if you remember this, but this is the other crazy thing that happened when it comes to this song," Cole said. "I just know there's signs, when you're on your path and you're on your journey and you're basically in tune, what I call being 'in tune.'"
Cole added that, for him personally, the idea of being "in tune" means feeling connected to a higher power. "I feel like you get signs and confirmations," he said. "I feel like God tossed you a sign and basically winked at you, and let you know that 'Yo, whatever you're doing right now, don't trip, you're in the right spot. Everything is going cool.'"
As for the specifics of the sign Cole says he got that helped him know he was "on my path," he said it all came together shortly after he was working on his "Trippy" contributions at a friend's house. Once he finished writing the verse at his friend's in-home studio, he headed over to meet with .Paak and lay down a final version. At that point, he noticed the album's title had a direct connection to the location of the house where he first wrote the verse.
"I got the chills, because I was like, 'Bro, you not even gonna fucking believe this,'" Cole recalled. "'Where I just came from writing this verse, my homeboy's house was on fucking Oxnard Street. That's the street he lives on.'"
Thundercat and SiR were among the additional .Paak House Radio guests. To listen to the full Oxnard-centered episode, you know what to do.
