Just hours after Dreamville’s J. Cole dropped his slave rebellion-themed visual, the North Carolina emcee sat down with the good folks over at Saint Heron for an exclusive interview. During the interview, Cole shared a few thoughts on his latest visual — including the directorial vision that he had, as well as the videos theme of classism and racism.
I’ve included some excerpts my the interview below.
What was it like?
Well, I went to see it, and in the kitchen scene, the guy starts singing this song. Basically, he did a play for every decade that he was alive. This play took place during like the 30’s or 20’s. In one of his scenes, a group of friends and family all start reminiscing on the days when they used to work on the railroad, and they used to sing this song. When I heard them singing it live, I’m looking around the theatre like, “Yo, do y’all know how crazy this is? Like, yo, this shit sounds amazing” [laughs]. I went home and prayed that I could find that sample. So I looked it up, and it turns out they did a TV version of the play. I went and watched that joint, and sure enough, they sung that same song. I tried sampling it off of that first, but then, come to find out, the guy that did the soundtrack for that television movie was selling it. So I just bought that shit [laughs]. Because it’s a reference to that time, and not necessarily slavery, but like the Jim Crow era South, the video treatment felt like that. So that’s the real answer behind why that video is with that song.
Why did you choose to take this video back to slavery and create sort of this period piece?
Well, I struggled, because first of all, I wanted to do like a Hype Williams-style video for this song so bad, because I’ve never done one of those. I felt like if I did do one of those, this would be the song to do it with. So, I battled with that urge to go the typical route with this video, because I feel like that’s what everyone expected. And every video I’ve ever done has never really been expected, so I was just like fuck it, let’s do it. The video is really more of a commentary on the need for unity and togetherness more so than it is a comment on racism, because [the black community] knows—we all know about oppression. We’re all aware of that. What we’re not aware of is the dysfunction within our own community. You know what I mean? The fact that there are levels to us economically and because of the different skin colors within our own race. We’re not aware of that. We’re aware of the other shit.
So, that’s who you were portraying in the video?
Yeah, that’s why I play that guy [laughs]. I’m not on the block; I didn’t come up in the streets to where I have a cool drug dealer story or a cool gangsta story like the real niggas got—like the real rappers and how we perceive them. Like, “I fuck with this rapper cause he a real nigga—cause he’s talking about this, that, and the third.” But really it’s like, nah. He was just more oppressed. He was just in a more fucked up situation. Just like the field slave. He’s in the worst position on the whole plantation. So there’s that correlation there, and the fact that in the video I was seeking for that approval. If you notice, I was like, “What’s up fellas!” I want them to like me [laughs]. Our mindset is so fucked up that the people that actually found a way to escape the oppression, either through their own merit or through their parents providing them with the opportunities, are seeking approval from the more oppressed. They want the stamp. They wanna be real! Look at the way I talk. I’m a college graduate. Every person I know that graduated college, our preferred speak, which we can switch on and off, our preferred speak is more relaxed and more street. So that’s what it was like for me in the video being like “What’s up fellas? We in this together, right?”
I know you worked with Kendrick Lamar in the past, and he just released his new album, To Pimp a Butterfly. It seems as though both of your albums and your new video specifically, have these shared undertones of unity within the Black community. Was this something the two of you established mutually or were you both just intuitive of what needed to happen in rap music?
It wasn’t a conscious effort of, “Yo, we’re gonna do it like this.” I can speak for myself; I can’t speak for another man, but I know what’s in my heart and I know what I want to say and the messages I want to get across. But yeah, we do have conversations when we get together about the same shit that we’re talking about and rapping about. Everything that I’m revealing on my album, I was telling him. Like, “Yo this is what I figured out. I see this shit like this. I might not even be doing this shit no more because I see this.” You know, I’m telling him all this. Even with his album, I haven’t been able to dive all the way in his joint, but I know that there’s a moment where he’s calling for unity no matter the gang color.
[Via]
