J. Cole has asked Kanye West to clear the sample for his fan-favorite song “Villematic.”
The North Carolina native’s plea came during his co-headlining performance alongside Drake at Dreamville Festival in his native North Carolina on Sunday night (April 2).
Towards the end of his set, Cole performed “Villematic” for the first time in over a decade, blending it with his show-stealing guest verse from Benny The Butcher’s “Johnny P’s Caddy.”
“Shout out to Kanye West,” the Dreamville boss said after running through the song. “Please clear the sample for me, my brother. I appreciate it.”
Taken from J. Cole’s 2010 mixtape Friday Night Lights, “Villematic” borrows its lush beat from Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy cut “Devil in a New Dress.”
Friday Night Lights was released for free to rave reviews, racking up over a million downloads on the popular mixtape website DatPiff while helping Cole land a record deal with JAY-Z’s Roc Nation.
However, the project remains absent from streaming services — not for lack of trying on Cole’s part, though. On its 10th anniversary in November 2020, the Grammy-winner said in an Instagram post: “My dream is to one day have this on DSP’s where it belongs.”
Before that, in 2013, he spoke about wanting to rerelease Friday Night Lights commercially along with his previous mixtape, 2009’s The Warm Up (which is also currently unavailable on streaming platforms).
The 20-song project features a plethora of other samples including Erykah Badu’s “Didn’t Cha Know” (“Too Deep For the Intro”), Cassie’s “Must Be Love” (“Back to the Topic”) and Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour” (“Love Me Not”), although it’s unclear if those have been cleared.
Kanye West, who is much less active on social media these days after almost derailing his career in 2022 thanks to his antisemitic outbursts, has yet to respond to J. Cole’s sample clearance request.
The pair have shared a rocky relationship in recent years, with many fans believing Cole subliminally dissed Kanye on his 2016 song “False Prophets.”
“Justifying that half ass shit he dropped, we always buy it/ When he tell us he a genius but it’s clearer lately/ It’s been hard for him to look into the mirror lately/ There was a time when this n-gga was my hero, maybe/ That’s the reason why his fall from grace is hard to take,” he spit.
The Fayetteville native appeared to unload more thinly-veiled shots at the fashion icon on 2019’s “Middle Child,” rapping: “I’d never beef with a n-gga for nothin’/ If I smoke a rapper, it’s gon’ be legit/ It won’t be for clout, it won’t be for fame/ It won’t be ’cause my shit ain’t sellin’ the same/ It won’t be to sell you my latest lil’ sneakers/ It won’t be ’cause some n-gga slid in my lane.”
Ye finally responded the following year by demanding a “public apology” from Cole during one of his famous Twitter tirades.
“I need a publicly apology from J. Cole and Drake to start with immediately,” he wrote. “I’m Nat Turner … I’m fighting for us. I’m not putting no more music out till I’m done with my contract with Sony and Universal…On God…in Jesus name…come and get me.”
He added: “I have the utmost respect for all brothers … we need to link and respect each other… no more dissing each other on labels we don’t own.”
However, the Hip Hop heavyweights appeared to have patched things up when they shared a pleasant exchange on social media last February following the release of Kanye’s jeen-yuhs Netflix docuseries.
“Thank you for this @kanyewest @coodierock phenomenal vulnerable powerful sad inspirational insightful wonderful masterful. Grateful to have watched,” Cole wrote on Instagram.
“That’s love family,” Ye wrote back while sharing a screenshot of Cole’s post on his own Instagram page.
Ah yes J.Cole the poor mans Kanye West
You’re comparing someone that writes their own rhymes and beats to someone who has ghostwritten rhymes and drums? Kanye is a poor man’s Puff Daddy.
Man, if you just compared Kanyes track record in Music to Puff Daddies own music… that’s just whack. You can’t dislike stuff Kanye has done the past decade… but the years before that he was producing awesome beats and making timeless albums. P diddy… nobody looks at him for his personal music, just the business he conducts to enrich himself while pretending he’s empowering black people lol.
Kanye pretended to be Christian, just like Puff pretends to be a straight black man that empowers his people, so they are even on that playing field too. Kanye never spawned or developed an artist like Biggie, Mary J, or even Ma$e. Nice try, but Kanye hasn’t been musically relevant since 2010 with Dark Fantasy. The streets aren’t messing with that techno minimalist trash you consider awesome.
Okay? I literally talked about how his music was very solid over a decade ago. And developing other artists, running labels… that isn’t you’re own personal music. Nobody ever regards Puffy as one of the hiphop artists who made great songs. Idc what you argue, anyone who thinks Puffy has better album runs than Kanye is just mental. I’m talking about the music. Not other artists music. 50s GRODT , Games Documentary, Kendricks GKMC, Ems first couple of albums… those aren’t Dr Dres albums. Those are albums he helped bring to life. Much like P Diddy with Biggie and other bad boy artists.
Completely cosign what you are saying. It’s wrong to compare Kanye an (ultimate) artists in every sense of the word to Puffy who is a Businessman and an A&R. In fact, he may be one of the best A&R’s in hip hop & hip hop r&b. But he’s no artist.
Tekashi 6ix9ine >>>> J Cole. I only listen to rappers who come with real lyricism like Tekashi
What?????
my entire face smells like j.cole’s asshole proudly
Why do you think about men eating ass Dahmer? Are your feelings hurt from something I said earlier?
Pretty sure Cole World needs to reach out to Smokey Robinson, but hey… What do I know??
No way he clearing that. Payback is a bitch- he dedicated a whole song to being disappointed in him.
Its a Kanye song and it sounds like something Kanye woulda produced but it was actually produced by Bink! Credit where credit is due.
Everyone is trying to write homie off of the books.