Around 2010 a rumour began to circulate that rappers Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole were collaborating on an album together, and speculation was rife about when it would be released. The pair had first met at a No I.D. gig, where Cole played some beats that he had to Lamar, and one of them would eventually become 'HiiiPoWer', which Cole produced for Lamar on his acclaimed 2011 debut album 'Section.80'. In 2010, speculation started that there was a rumoured J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar collaboration album, although as the years went on, fans were left disappointed. In 2012, during an interview with BootlegKev, Cole confirmed that when it did come out it would be an official album, and not the mixtape that had been suggested, but still nothing emerged. The two did eventually get together in the studio when Lamar guested on Cole's 2013 track 'Forbidden Fruit', but this appeared to be a one-off, as nothing else from the pair has appeared since that. On Black Friday of 2015 both artists dropped a surprise release, when each of them remixed a track by the other, and uploaded them to Soundcloud. Cole rapped over Lamar's 'Alright' instrumental, while Lamar went off on Cole's 'Tale Of Two Cities' beat, and there was a hint at the end of Cole's rap that the joint album might appear in February of 2016. This seemed to be confirmed, when Lamar's sister, Kayla Duckworth, tweeted "Collab drop #Feb 16 so be on the look out as well", although February came and went with no sign of the record. One of the major stumbling blocks was always going to be the fact that Lamar was signed to TDE, Aftermath and Interscope Records, while Cole was with Rocnation, distributed by Columbia through his Dreamville label, so there would have to be some major negotiations to get through before a record would be able to appear. Recently the two rappers fell out, after Cole appeared to diss Lamar on his track '7 Minute Drill', where he starts the song off by mentioning that Lamar's verse on 'Like That' was simply a hustle for attention, with him stating "I got a phone call, they say that somebody dissing / You want some attention, it comes with extensions", and then immediately after, Cole takes straight shots at Lamar, as he talks about his discography, and the inconsistency that Lamar has within the music industry. Following that, it's now extremely unlikely that this legendary album will ever appear, and so to draw a line under the whole episode, Youtuber Will On The Soul had painstakingly put together a mash-up from the two rappers which can serve as the closest that we'll ever get to an actual joint album from them.
Track listing
01 Intro
02 The King’s Gambit (feat. Bas)
03 Reign Supreme
04 Phone Calls
05 Delta Blues
06 The Journey Of The Lamb (feat. Joey Badass)
07 Sampha Freestyle (feat. Sampha)
08 Love Language / Am I Wrong (feat. Andre 3000, Drake & Mild Orange)
09 Javari (feat. Boubacar Traoré)
10 Perspectives
11 The Promised Land Interlude (feat. Bobby Bland)
12 The Promised Land (feat. Andre 3000)
13 Jam Psychadelic / Outro
