How Much Did Lil Durk Pay J. Cole for His Verse on “All My Life?”

On May 12, Lil Durk released “All My Life,” which was the lead promotional single for his May 26 studio album Almost Healed. Thanks to the song’s main attraction, a feature verse from J. Cole, “All My Life” debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, Durk’s highest placement on the chart as the primary artist on a song.

Currently, “All My Life” sits at over 67 million streams on Spotify, while its music video has earned 34 million views on YouTube. When speaking about Cole’s uplifting verse during an interview with Complex, Durk even admitted that Cole outdid him on the song.

“The number one thing, he smoked my ass on that, for one,” he said. “Barely. That barely happens. But shoutout to Cole… We made it happen.”

But, just how much did it cost for Durk to get Cole on the Song? Well, on Monday (June 5), hip-hop outlet RapHouseTV reported that Durk paid Cole $978,000 for the verse. When doing the math, RapHouseTV figured that each word Cole rapped ended up costing Durk $2,000.

However, shortly after this report, Cole’s manager and president of his Dreamville label Ib Hamad tweeted that this was false. Quoting RapHouseTV‘s tweet, Hamad succinctly used the baseball cap emoji to state that the reported feature price for Cole was inaccurate. For clarification, young, urban communities use the word “cap” to refer to something that is a lie.

Along with Cole, Durk’s Almost Healed also included guest appearances from icons like Alicia Keys, Morgan Wallen, Future, 21 Savage, Juice WRLD, and more, which likely racked up a large bill for Durk and his team. But, when speaking with ryderoncrack recently, a producer who worked with Durk for two songs on Almost Healed, he explained to us that Durk’s main focus for this album was crafting the best music he possibly could so that he could win a Grammy.

“They took their time with this one,” ryderoncrack told American Songwriter. “They’re really going after a Grammy for this. They don’t care about the No. 1 spot, they care about a Grammy nomination for Durk.”

So, even if the $978,000 figure for Cole was fudged, Durk clearly figured that money was not a problem when financing Almost Healed, which earned the best sales debut of any album in Durk’s extensive catalog.

Photo by Steve Cannon / Courtesy CL Media