J. Cole has shared two unreleased collaborations between himself and Kendrick Lamar.
The songs, “Shock The World” and “Temptation,” are from 2010 around the time both flirted with recording a joint album together.
Speaking on the latest episode of his “Inevitable” audio series, Cole recalled recording with Kendrick during a stop on Drake‘s “Club Paradise Tour” in 2012.
“[Lamar] came to Fayetteville and we worked on that studio bus for two or three days,” Cole shared. “Before, I had sent him joints, but this was the first time we actually got to lock in and work on sh*t. And that sh*t was so fun, dawg… It felt like when your cousin would come over to your house.”
The Dreamville founder added, “I knew we would do something crazy if we ever got the chance to do an album. So we came up with a few ideas.”
Cole’s manager, Ibrahim “Ib” Hamad, then played an unreleased collaboration between the two, which was produced by Oddisee.
Furthermore, the rapper opened up about his “feeling of surpassment” upon listening to the tracks on Lamar’s “good kid, m.A.A.d city” for the first time.
“When Kendrick’s album dropped, the journey got harder, the mountain got steeper. Because similar to when [So Far Gone] dropped, where it was like, ‘Oh sh*t, there’s another person out there that has the same ambitions as me,’ it happened like that with Kendrick.”
Cole continued, “It was a feeling of surpassment. It was two indicators that told me. His first-week numbers were more than mine. The other thing was we had a show where we were both on the same lineup… and I went before him and he went after me.”
You can check out “Inevitable” here.