J. Cole Shares List of Hip-Hop Artists Who Inspired Him

World-famous actor and comedian Kevin Hart is now three seasons into his Peacock series Heart to Hart, where he hosts intimate interviews with some of the biggest stars in pop culture. For his most recent episode, S3E8, Hart welcomed J. Cole to his show, five years removed from Cole releasing the song “Kevin’s Heart” as a part of his 2018 album KOD, where he critiques Hart’s notorious cheating scandal with his wife.

During their conversation, Hart asks Cole who his biggest inspirations were in hip-hop before he became famous. In response, Cole listed six men who shaped him as an emcee.

“I got a whole list of people who are the reason why I’m here — my north stars that I look up to,” he told Hart. “Obviously, Pac (Tupac). Jay (Jay-Z), Nas, Eminem, André 3000, Lil Wayne. And these are obviously the big bullets.”

Additionally, Cole continued by saying that he admired other artists like Detroit’s Royce da 5’9″ and Jamaica’s Canibus, but that the aforementioned group of emcees were his most influential.

“I had Royce the 5’9 moments. I had Canibus moments,” he added. “But like in terms of the people that fueled my ambition. That showed me what was really possible. Like the first names I named, those are the highest ones. So those were the people where I was like, ‘Yo, I’m tryna get up there.’ In terms of skill, in terms of success, all of that they fueled it.”

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Two of Cole’s six “north stars,” Jay-Z and Nas, actually played a huge role in Cole’s career. Although born in North Carolina, Cole moved to New York in his late teen years to pursue college basketball and hip-hop. Being that it was the prime of Jay-Z’s career, Cole made the decision to find a way to show Jay-Z his skills, similar to how Kanye West did in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

One day, around the time Jay-Z was working on his 2007 album American Gangster, Cole camped outside of his studio for hours in the rain waiting for his idol to show up. Eventually, Jay-Z rolled up, but, it was not the experience Cole had dreamed of.

“Man, I don’t want that,” Jay said to Cole after he tried to hand him a CD of his beats.

Cole was heartbroken but continued to hone his craft as a producer and rapper. Eventually, this would lead to one of Jay-Z’s A&R Mark Pitts playing a Cole song for Jay, and Jay was immensely impressed. In 2009, just before dropping his The Warm Up mixtape and a year before his debut album Friday Night Lights, Cole became the first artist signed to Jay-Z’s Roc Nation record label.

A few years later, Cole was able to meet Nas, another New York native who is still regarded as one of the greatest rappers ever. Nas offered words of wisdom to Cole, which Cole valued tremendously. But, when Cole released his smash hit 2011 single “Work Out,” which peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100, Nas did not approve, upset about the fact that Cole decided to sacrifice his artistic integrity for a radio hit.

This would lead Cole to add the song “Let Nas Down” to his 2013 sophomore album Born Sinner, where he lamented about disappointing his idol, even though Roc Nation urged Cole to release “Work Out” to build a larger fanbase. After hearing the song, Nas decided to craft a remix titled “Made Nas Proud,” where he reassured Cole he was still in his corner.

So you ain’t let Nas down
It’s just part of the game, becoming a rap king, my n***a
You ain’t let Nas down
How that sound? Here the crown, pass it to you like nothin’, n***a
You ain’t let Nas down

Though their relationship seemed to be intact, Cole would eventually decide to distance himself from Nas years later, after catching wind of Nas’ ex-wife Kelis accusing him of domestic abuse in 2018.

“It feels weird because I fuck with Nas, but I just have to be honest,” Cole said in an interview with Billboard. “I came up seeing too much fucked-up shit for that to be acceptable. I don’t care who it is. I don’t fuck with people abusing women, and I don’t fuck with people not taking care of their kids.”

Five years later, though, Cole is back to praising Nas and his contributions to rap music, evident in the quotes mentioned above in the Hart interview. But, it’s still unclear whether or not Cole holds a relationship with Nas at the moment.

Photo by Josh Brasted/FilmMagic