100 Quotes by J. Cole
J. Cole, a luminary in the realm of hip-hop, transcends the conventional boundaries of the genre through his introspective lyricism and poignant storytelling. His verses, laced with social commentary and personal narratives, peel back the layers of his life and experiences, captivating audiences with their unfiltered authenticity. With a remarkable ability to delve into topics ranging from racial inequality to mental health struggles, J. Cole's music is a tapestry of thought-provoking verses that inspire reflection and dialogue. He navigates the fine line between commercial success and artistic integrity, always pushing his own boundaries to deliver albums that are not only musically appealing but also socially relevant. In a landscape often dominated by fleeting trends, J. Cole's commitment to substantive content cements his legacy as an artist who prompts listeners to engage with the world beyond the beats and rhythms.
J. Cole Quotes
I seen a baby cry seconds later he laughs. The beauty of life, the pain never lasts.
You are perfect exactly as you are. With all your flaws and problems, there's no need to change anything. All you need to change is the thought that you aren't good enough.
To appreciate the sun you gotta know what rain is. (Meaning)
Life is a movie, pick your own role, Climb your own ladder or you dig your own hole.
Anything's possible, you gotta dream like you never seen obstacles.
Keep grindin' boy, your life can change in one year, And even when it's dark out, the sun is shining somewhere
No need to fix what God already put his paint brush on (Meaning)
One thing you should know about me is I never play to lose, Always aim high and rarely obey the rules.
"In this life ain't no happy endings;
Only pure beginnings followed by years of sinning and fake repentance."
Either you play the game or let the game play you and be that broke sucka talkin bout I stayed true
Believe in God like the sun up in the sky, see science can tell us how but it can't tell us why. I seen a baby cry then seconds later she laughed, the beauty of life the pain never lasts.
The same ones you love will bring you pain.
If you ain't aim too high, then you aim too low! (Meaning)
Don't let bridges you cross be bridges you burn.
I always feel like it's two key ingredients when it comes to following your dreams, making something happen that the average person deems difficult. If you truly believe it, that's step one. Step two, is, you know, the hard work that goes along with it.
They say time is money but really it's not. If we ever go broke, then time is all we got. And we can't make that back, no you can't make that back
I put a lot of pressure on myself. I think something's not good enough, and I won't stop until I feel like I've made it. I'm never satisfied.
Hard to move on when you always regret one. (Meaning)
We got dreams and we got the right to chase 'em, Look at the nation, that's a crooked smile braces couldn't even straighten.
If I lost your respect, I'm just hope you don't look at me as something you regret.
Don't worry, Even Jesus never saw his real father
I'm here to spread a message of hope. Follow your heart. Don't follow what you've been told you're supposed to do.
I feel like relationships are a beautiful thing, period. Relationships can be really beautiful, they can be really hard, they can be really rewarding, or they can be bad relationships where it's really detrimental and hurtful, but that's life, period.
My real dream is to have a whole, like, buy a whole piece of land. Imagine, like, a long driveway. Like, a cul de sac-type street, with maybe, like, seven houses. Me be right here. Have my mom be able to be right here. My brother over here. My girl's grandmother and family right here. Friends over there. That's my real dream.
So ahead of my time even when i rhyme about the future I be reminiscing
I'm already hot, you could say I'm pre-heated. If money talks, mine's telling your's to 'be seated
I feel like this: Whatever is in your path and in your heart, you need to do.
I've always been an underdog. I feel like I beat the odds.
History repeats itself and that's just how it goes.
I'm be here for a while. None of these clowns can hurt me.
As much as it might look like, to someone else, that I'm successful, I never feel like I'm anywhere. The further I go, I still feel equally further from my eventual goal. Because as I grow, I get more goals. I'm never content.
You hate it before you played it. I already forgave ya.
If I was to go to sleep before midnight, I would feel weird about myself, like I wasted a day. My most productive hours are between midnight and five.
College isn't in everyone's hearts. I am living proof, though, that school doesn't mess up your plans. It gives you more experiences to write about.
I'm a super-duper over-analyzer. You mix that with self-doubt and pressure, and that's never healthy.
Sold my soul to Satan. I've been dancing with the devil. So when you get to hell you can say you know me. I'm easily attracted by the dark side. Devil keep following.
If I'm a character, it's a biographical movie. My character is as close to me as possible. As close to being myself as possible. So my character, J. Cole, is very close to Jermaine Cole.
Get on yo job little man this ain't Saturday
I have a little bit of that gamer spirit in me. I just don't have the time to be a gamer. But in another life, I would be one.
You can't reverse fame. You can lose all the money, but you'll never lose people knowing you.
Rhyme patterns are nothing without meanings to the words. A lot of rappers can do those flows, but the raps aren't really about anything - which is cool sometimes, but to have the flow and the message is one of my favorite things.
There was the time I bought three cars in the span of three or four weeks. It was crazy; it wasn't greedy. It was mine, my girl's, my mom's. I got Benzes for my ladies. But I felt crazy. You have to understand I come from a world where we're very modest. But that's not greedy. That's nice, right?
One day, I'll be listening to a bunch of Ray Charles, the next day it's nothing but Red Hot Chili Peppers. The next day it might be Tupac all day.
In my mind, New York was the place where they had the underground rap shows and I could get in on some ciphers and just rap. This whole fantasy world I had created in my head about New York just from listening to the music my whole life, like, I'ma go up there and do that. But when I came up here, there was none of that, that scene was dead.
I'm the type of person where, A., I look at things as challenges, I like challenges and, B., I truly believe that you determine your own destiny.
I actually started off majoring in computer science, but I knew right away I wasn't going to stay with it. It was because I had this one professor who was the loneliest, saddest man I've ever known. He was a programmer, and I knew that I didn't want to do whatever he did.
In marriage you got to go through the same struggles as a relationship, that's if the relationship is real, because there's a lot of non-real relationships going on in the world right now. And I think that's just because of the day and age we're in, a lot of these relationships are taking place over text messages, it's not real substance. But when you got a real one, it's already like a marriage.
It's no coincidence that all the greatest rappers - whoever you put in your top five - I guarantee you they a great storyteller.
Marriage is just a relationship to me. In my experience, when you've been in a relationship for as long as I've been in one, there's no real difference. It's just a piece of paper that validates what was already real.
Tupac was just so passionate about what he believes in and not afraid to say anything.
Even my momma asked what I'mma do. Decisions, decisions/ In case this is war, then I load up on all ammunition/ If a n----a want problems, my trigger's on auto.
I'm not gonna be bad at anything, and I want to actually be the best at anything I'm doing. So if I'm playing basketball, if I'm taking the SATs, like, there's a competitive spirit behind it. With production, it's the same thing.
Yeah school girl, cool girl. Your dress is sexy and your momma is a cougar.
I now possess the tools as a producer and a songwriter to really just go out and make smashes all day long. I could make an album full of smash records that got pop appeal. But my heart is in hip-hop. My heart is in telling stories. And it's like therapy for me.
No rapper in the world from Jay-Z to Tupac to Biggie has 100 percent love on everything they do.
My fans love me for me, my beats, my rhymes.
My goal is to have that be a haven for families.
Far from the richest rapper, but my biggest personal achievement thus far in my life has been retiring my mom early from her job at the Post Office. It's a tiny payback for the sacrifices she made that allowed me to chase a far-fetched dream of becoming a successful artist. I'm forever grateful.
I feel like I'm a New Yorker because I really know the city. I actually tell the drivers where to go - I have this bad habit, I always question the drivers. I do that all the time because I feel like I know the best way, when really it's like, 'Yo, man, shut up. This dude does this every day of his life.'
How big can you be if just the underground niggas know you? You can't buy your mom a house when you just an underground celebrity.
The thing about being an artist today is you get to develop right in front of people's eyes before you even put out an album.
Producing all my own songs and refusing to go to the hot producer. That's the biggest risk I've taken so far.
I begged my mom for a beat machine, she spent a crazy amount of money - so there were no more Christmases, no more basketball camps, no more birthday gifts. I always knew that's what I wanted to do.
My parents were divorced by the time I was even conscious - like I don't remember them ever being together.
I want people to follow their dreams, yes but I'm not interested in telling young black kids how to be rappers I want to show them that there's so many other paths you can take, besides a rapper or basketball player.
I was just a goofy little funny kid, who was always getting sent to the principal. It wasn't serious because I was smart. I wasn't like a true troublemaker, just rambunctious - like, talkative and trying to be funny. That was me in middle-school.
There's still value in a CD, even if it's just nostalgic. People are still willing to pay. But it can't compare to a digital-only release where you can control the exact time that it'll come out, you know what I mean? So whoever finds how to bridge that gap is gonna make a lot of money.
I'm half-black, half-white, so I basically put it like this: I can fit in anywhere. That's why I write so many stories from so many different perspectives, because I've seen so many.
I pay attention to lyrics and I know what rap fans care about. I try to write for the average listener and I'm conscious of the mainstream without selling out.
The music becomes more pure and soulful when it's true, and it has to be true these days with the way the internet works, and the way the game works, everyone wants authentic raps.
Sometimes I try a Mai Tai. It's so fruity. It's a little embarrassing, but I like it.
In hip-hop, there's not a lot of love. There's not a lot of love being spread. It's always like 'I'm stuntin' on you raps, or I'm better than you raps.' It's not a lot of 'Yo man, I idolize you raps.'
College had a great deal to do with my development as a person. I don't know if I'd be the artist I was if it wasn't for goin' to school like that. School is a good place - it ain't for everybody, but I think it's for most people.
It's not necessarily a church theme and it's not really about church. I like my album themes to be metaphors because it gives me the freedom to speak about something else that's going on in my life, so the Born Sinner thing is not about church, it's not even about religion. It's using that as canvas to get other messages across and that's what the album will be.
School is a good place - it ain't for everybody, but I think it's for most people.
I want to be like Bruce Springsteen or something, making songs that are relevant.
I met Will Smith twice. I didn't talk to him for too long but I was trying to let him know that my age group grew up watching him - he was the coolest guy on television and the coolest guy in movies.
I'm not a conscious rapper, all those things we talk about, the struggle, the pain, the outlook to the future, keep your head up. I try to put all those positive things into a regular human character, which is myself.
I kinda like the idea of having an album that's all me.
I don't like to think of it as being fired. Instead, I prefer to think of it as being on indefinite leave with a sabbatical flair.
I've got two Rolexes that I'm very proud of - a gold Presidential that was a gift and a white gold one I gifted myself. I'm trying to step my game up and get a few more of those.
Touring is very routine. You get to the city, you go to the hotel, you got to be at the hotel by a certain time - it's very routine. I'm not a very structured person, so when I get some structure, it's cool; it's good for me.
I was a super-duper Tupac fan, and I realized later, when I became a huge Nas fan and a huge Eminem fan, I was drawn to the storytellers. They all told stories in different ways, but they were all like the best storytellers.
I think all you can really do is use the tour to kinda fill up with experiences and thoughts, and then, when you get back to the studio, or in some type of creative environment, that's when you release everything that you've encountered on tour.
When you're a rapper, just a rapper, you have to kind of settle for whatever comes your way - if a beat is hot, you wanna rap on it, period.
I'm the same kid who used to hop the trains with headphones and just go to downtown Manhattan, walk around and listen to music or walk through the city. The fame restricts that. It's a small complaint in comparison to the benefits I get from it, but the restrictive part is what I don't like - and the fact that it's not reversible.
I do put a lot of God in my music, but not because I'm super religious. There are a lot of demons in my music, too. I acknowledge both.
I just feel like, with rappers, there's so much complacency. It's like, 'Oh, I'm a rapper. I'm successful. I make money. That's all that matters.' But there's a lot of stuff going on in the world. Whether or not you're aware of it, it's happening.
My Mother's an actress, and she's always told me, "Boy, you're an actor." I would look forward to seeing if I'm any good. I want to be good at it, that's the only thing.
When you're headlining, people are paying to come see you specifically. It's a different kind of pressure, because you've got to deliver. You've got to give these people what they paid for. It's a different mind state, a different type of mentality, but it's honestly a pretty good problem to have, you know?
When composing music, I just start spilling things out and then wait until they take form, you know what I mean, until I see like a common thread or something.
I wanna show you I can out-rap your favorite rappers. I wanna show you I can out-produce your favorite producers. So I'm constantly getting better and I understand that there's always room for growth, especially in quality, sonic quality.
I worked in ad sales. I would call up local businesses and try to get them to buy ads in the paper. The whole time, I felt like I was just scamming people.
I don't wanna forget the fact that I wanna be one of the best rappers. I feel like some of the best rappers ever - 2Pac, namely, one of them - could take sub-par beats or average beats and turn them into incredible songs.
I didn't even have to be a big fan of someone to enjoy hearing them speak. I remember when Nikki Giovanni came - I wasn't really familiar with her. But she said some things I'll never forget. Like, okay, for example, she was talking about the amount of beef that's in the world. There are so many McDonald's, Burger Kings, Wendy's.
I never really told anybody that I'm a rapper. I wasn't walking around being like, "Yo, check out my mixtape!" It was more of a secret grind.
A lot of my music is just self-observation. Like telling you, "Oh man. What did I just do? How much did I just pay for this chain? Why did I do that? Wait a minute." Let me talk about that. Or like, the temptation. Let me talk about that. Let me observe myself.
― J. Cole Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
