Lil Durk has elaborated on why it was a two-year process for him and J. Cole to record their current single “All My Life.”
In a sit-down interview on The Nadeska Show on Saturday (June 17), Durk began by speaking about the effort the Fayetteville rapper put into the infectious rap record which many have praised since its release in May.
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“He went super crazy,” Lil Durk said. “It’s so crazy because we’d been talking for like, two years, and he’d always be like, ‘Send me a record.’ And I’m like, ‘I gotta find the right record.’ I’m glad I waited two years. In my eyes he a legend. If you have a chance to do a song with a legend, it be like, will you send them something just to send it, just to say you got one, or you gone make it stick. So that’s why I never just sent him a record. Cause I’m like, ‘I want something that’s gon’ stick.’ ”
He added: “As soon as I did the record, he was the first person to pop in my head. Like, I got it. I believe in timing. Timing is everything.”
J. Cole’s manager recently disputed claims that the rapper charged a huge fee for his guest verse on the song, calling “cap” on the notion.
Ibrahim “Ib” Hamad took to Twitter earlier this month to respond to a tweet from RapHouseTV alleging that Cole made Durk cough up $978,000 for his feature on the song, replying with a cap emoji. Durk’s DJ also debunked the report by writing on Twitter: “False news we ain’t never paid for a feature… Ever!”
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The aforementioned tweet didn’t provide any evidence for their claim, and seemed to merely be citing Cole’s verse on Young Thug’s “The London” on which he raps: “A verse from me is like eleven birds/ I did the math it’s like $2,000 every word.”
In addition, the OTF frontman admitted to Complex in May that Cole bodied him on his own song, which is something the Chicago rapper says “barely happens” to him.
“He smoked my ass on that one, for one — barely,” Smurk said when asked about his experience working with the Dreamville don. “That barely happens. But shout out to J. Cole, shout out to [Dr.] Luke, we made it happen.”
Durk also spoke about “All My Life” in a May interview with Apple Music, and said the song came about because he was feeling “moody” and knew J. Cole would be the perfect fit.
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“Whatever mood I’m in, I just go to the studio and just make the music,” he said. “I just feel like a positive vibe went up with Dr. Luke, you know what I’m saying? That’s the first song he played and I just felt it and I’m like, ‘Man, I want J. Cole on this.’”
He continued: “And I made it happen. I’ve been talking to him, checking up on him, just seeing how you doing. You wait for the right moment for him to ask to be on the song. The song be big.”
