J. Cole fans just received a mid-week surprise.
On Wednesday night, producer Bvtman unleashed the rapper’s new track “Procrastination (Broke),” along with a text message about its origin. The sender, presumably Cole, admits the song was never supposed to see the light of day, but decided to release it as a “thank you” to Bvtman as well as “every producer out there cooking up and sharing their work with the world.”
The message states Cole was struggling to find inspiration one day and decided to simply search “J. Cole type beat” on YouTube. He was directed to Bvtman’s channel, which includes a heap of beats that pay homage to artists like Cole, Kendrick Lamar, Nipsey Hussle, Kanye West, 21 Savage, Drake, and more. Once he heard the “Procrastination” beat, Cole got out of his funk and began writing.
Read the full text below.
“This song should live on your channel and serve as a thank you to you and every producer out there cooking up and sharing their work with the world. It’s a million artists out there right now just like me, hungry and searching every day for something to spark a word, a melody, a hook, a verse, a punchline, a way to vent, or a way to CUT THROUGH.
Bvtman recalled driving on the highway when he randomly received a text message from Ibrahim “IB” Hamad, the co-founder of Dreamville Records and Cole’s longtime manager. IB informed the producer that Cole was a fan of his work, a moment Bvtman describes as unbelievable.
“If you know me, you know what this post means to me & what this song means to me,” he wrote in an IG caption. “If you know me you know this is my peace finally, my dream. … It’s crazy how this happened. Randomly driving on the high with my shorty and I get a text from [Ibrahim Hamad] saying [Cole] fuccs with my beats. I almost ain’t believe this was real life…. But it is.”
You can listen to the Bvtman-produced “Procrastination (Broke)” via YouTube up top.
The track arrives as fans patiently await the follow-up to Cole’s 2021 album The Off Season. The rapper began teasing his next moves back in 2019, suggesting he would drop a few more records before bowing out.
“A long-term plan of becoming the best rapper I could possibly be before hanging up my jersey, leaving nothing on the table when all was said and done. The seeds for The Fall Off were planted,” Cole wrote in an essay for the Players’ Tribune in 2020. “The fire that was once dying out has returned, and for that I’m grateful. On my career bucket list, there remain a few more items to check off before I give myself permission to enter whatever the next chapter of my life may be.”
Cole’s next full-length release is expected to be It’s a Boy.
