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Here are 14 things you need to know about J. Cole, including the one about him dressed as a kangaroo.
Despite sampling it one of his biggest hits, J. Cole has admitted that he isn’t a fan of the original song by Kanye West. On his latest single ‘False Prophet’, Cole also appears to take shots at Kanye. However the Fayetteville rapper claims that Yeezy’s debut album ‘College Dropout’ is one of his favourites.
His real name is actually Jermaine Lamar Cole. The rapper attempted to keep his rap alias similar to his real name.
The rapper was born on 28th January, 1985 in Frankfurt Germany, where his dad was based in the US Army. Cole's mother is German. The family relocated to Fayetteville in North California when he was eight months old.
When J. Cole met rapper Bomm Sheltuh, he was using the name Blaza and then he switched to Therapist after consulting the dictionary. He switched to the name J. Cole before releasing 'The Come Up'.
Cole began laying his own beats down after his mother spent a whopping $1,300 on an ASR-X, which the aspiring rapper used to put together music in his bedroom.
In 2009, J. Cole played first-chair violinist in his high school Terry Sandford Orchestra. What's even better is that Cole's orchestra performed the theme songs from Mission Impossible and Batman!
Directed by Michel Gondry, Dave Chappelle's Block Party took place in Brooklyn with performances from the likes of Kanye and Common - and J. Cole was in the front row! The rapper won tickets to the event and can be seen making a cameo in the accompanying film.
Head over to YouTube to watch what happened when Wale and J Cole descended on a Denny's fast food joint after one of their shows.
Before putting pen to paper on his contract with Roc Nation, J. Cole has revealed that his first thought when he met Jay Z was: "Damn, I'm taller than Jay Z!" Cole is a whole one inch - 6' 3" - taller that Jay.
It was worth the wait, Jay finally featured on 'Mr Nice Watch'.
Before rapping, J. Cole briefly held jobs as an ad salesman at a newspaper and a bill collector - but he has admitted that he struggled with both roles.
Believe it or not, J. Cole used to work at a skating rink when he was a teenager, which he used to have to dress up as a kangaroo to entertain customers.
In an exclusive interview with Capital XTRA two years ago, he said that the pair were planning to hit the studio together.
“You get to this height or this level in your career, in terms of platform, the next one might go down, it could go up,” he said in the album's documentary 'Eyez'. “You’re never guaranteed to be this high again. While I’m here, let me use this opportunity to say the realest sh*t I’ve ever said.”