The Vibe.com Cover Story: J. Cole - "[The Girls] Scream And Go Crazy Like I'm Drake"

Here’s a pretty solid interview J.Cole recently had with Vibe online. Speaks on a number of different topics, but I thought his words on “Who Dat” were interesting:

VIBE: Everyone knows how important first singles are. Why was “Who Dat” the one?J. Cole: First it was all feeling, just the sound and excitement behind it. Instead of shooting for an obviously commercial song, I love [“Who Dat”] because it’s really about the beat and the raps and not much more. It’s an introduction to those that were unfamiliar and also something for my fans to brag about as opposed to hearing it on the radio and being like ‘Ehhh.’ I also thought it was real ill, that I’m rapping on that the way I used to always rap… raw, aggressive. Those used to be the only raps I wrote, but as I get older, I barely do those anymore. It’s kind of interesting because the rest of my album is so far from that. That’s probably one of the only braggadocios raps, maybe one more. Everything else is conceptual storytelling with substance and meaning. Putting that out first, kind of reflects my growth as an artist.

This is also the first song from you where all the blog comments weren’t immediately positive—they were a bit polarizing. Were you surprised?

I kind of knew. Just from seeing other people, not even necessarily people from the blog era, you kind have to pick your strategy and go with it. People automatically look at the word ‘single’ different, especially ‘first single’. But I don’t pay attention because I understand that that’s going to happen for the rest of my career. As much as I would love to have everybody in agreement like ‘J. Cole’s the truth, everything he’s doing is perfect,’ I totally understand that that’s not realistic. No rapper in the world from Jay-Z to Tupac to Biggie has 100 percent love on everything they do. These people’s opinions for the most part are valid, but I don’t stress it. I just do what’s in my heart.

FULL INTERVIEW HERE: http://www.vibe.com/jcole/the-vibecom-cover-story-j-cole---the-girls-scream-and-go-crazy-like-im-drak