Jim Jones Claims He Passed On Signing Drake

Jim Jones has claimed that he once passed on signing Drake, J. Cole and The Weeknd.

Speaking to The Art of Dialogue, Jones claimed the opportunities came about when he was Vice President of Urban A&R at Koch Records in 2009.

He said: “J. Cole used to be in my studio all the time. I can say that wholeheartedly, and then Drake, Alan Grunblatt let me hear some of his music. But I kept telling him he had no image. I didn’t understand it, it didn’t connect, but he could rap his ass off.”

Jones added: “Would it have been nice? Yeah, that might have been dope. But who knows, they might have not had the success that was given to them from the work they put in if it would have went through the channels that I had to offer.”

Jones also revealed that he failed to sign The Weeknd due to personal reasons as he met the Candian singer on the same day a close friend was killed.

Jones is not the first person to reject signing J. Cole early in his career.

Speaking on his podcast series Inevitable, Cole revealed that he was looked over by Eminem’s manager, Paul Rosenberg.

“After that meeting [with G-Unit], we got a meeting with two people: one was Chris Lighty and the other was – I think Sha [Money XL] had something to do with this – he got us a meeting with Paul Rosenberg who is Eminem’s manager forever and runs Shady Records,” Cole said. “Just like being at 50’s house and meeting Mark Pitts, it was, ‘Now we’re talking momentum.’ Just a year prior, I was fucking waiting outside on some Hail Mary shit for JAY-Z, and now I’m getting real momentum of people calling like, ‘They want to come and see us, they want us to pull up and play music.’”

Cole’s manager Ib added: “I remember at the Paul Rosenberg meeting, ’cause I was there for that, it really felt like he was doing someone a favor.”

Cole replied, “Chris Lighty’s energy was more like, ‘Yo, I’m just gonna give y’all some game. Y’all young n-ggas I heard about, boom boom boom.’ And Paul Rosenberg genuinely felt like he was disinterested and didn’t give a fuck. It literally felt like it was a favor. There was no vibe to that meeting, he didn’t see it, he didn’t get it. Which is cool, he didn’t play us at all.”