J. Cole Asks Kanye to Clear Sample for Him During Concert

Although J. Cole and Kanye West have had their fair share of differences throughout their careers, Cole still needs Ye to do him a favor for his fans’ sake.

During his headlining set with Drake at Dreamville Fest this past weekend (April 2), Cole pleaded with West to clear a sample for him. Cole did so after performing his song “Villematic” from his Friday Night Lights mixtape (2010). “Villematic” uses the same beat as West’s Rick Rock-assisted “Devil in a New Dress,” released earlier that year.

“Shout out to Kanye West. Please clear the sample for me, my brother. I appreciate it,” Cole said.

When the clip surfaced on Twitter, Dreamville co-founder and president Ib Hamad mentioned that Cole mixtapes like Friday Night Lights and The Warm Up (2009) cannot be added to DSPs until West fulfills this wish, considering Cole used to sample Kanye beats many times on his early tapes.

Although it would appear to be a mildly amicable relationship nowadays, Cole and Ye have had a war of words in the past. 2016 saw Cole release his single “False Prophets,” where he fired subliminal shots at West for his antics outside of music, as well as his musical decline.

He’s fallin’ apart, but we deny it
Justifying that half ass shit he dropped, we always buy it
When he tell us he a genius but it’s clearer lately
It’s been hard for him to look into the mirror lately
There was a time when this n***a was my hero, maybe
That’s the reason why his fall from grace is hard to take

Then in 2020, while West was in the midst of a Twitter rant regarding rappers’ independence from record labels, he demanded an apology from J. Cole, as well as Drake. Likely referring to the disrespect on “False Prophets,” Ye wanted to reconnect with Cole but wanted an apology first.

“I need a publicly apology from J Cole and Drake to start with immediately … I’m Nat Turner … I’m fighting for us,” he wrote.

Most recently before Dreamville Fest, Cole made a 10th-anniversary post for Friday Night Lights in November 2020. Two months after Ye tweeted the apology demand, Cole tagged West in his now-deleted Instagram post thanking all the artists that contributed to and inspired the mixtape.

While it’s unclear where West stands on the J. Cole matter in 2023, it would be nice to see him offer Cole grace and clear samples for him, especially considering how special Cole’s mixtapes are to the story of his carer.

Photo by Josh Brasted/FilmMagic