J. Cole was a key player in the beginning stages of the Drake and Kendrick Lamar beef, but dropped out early after removing his Kendrick diss track ‘7 Minute Drill’ from streaming services.
Now, J. Cole has broken his silence over the feud in his new song “Port Antonio,” which he dropped last night Oct. 9th. Cole, who was referenced as one of the “Big Three” rappers along with Drake and Kendrick in the verse that reignited the beef, tells the whole story of the feud from his perspective over five dense minutes. Cole uses a friend’s metaphor to compare his lyrics to a gun, but says a gun isn’t what he wants to be.
The beef, and its winners and losers, are inconsequential to their overall purpose as artists, he raps — “not for beefing” but for “speakin’ our thoughts, pushin’ ourselves, reachin’ the charts,” and connecting with people on an emotional and intellectual level.