J.Cole Wants To Compete With "White Folks" For Album Of The Year Grammy

I’m trying to compete with the white people,” said Roc Nation emcee J. Cole during a recent interview with Hartford’s Hot 93.7. The “Power Trip” rapper was speaking on how he want his upcoming album, Born Sinner, to be a competitor for the Grammy’s coveted “Album of the Year” award and not settling for just picking up trophies in the Hip-Hop categories.

Cole expressed that in his opinion Hip-Hop is still not regarded as highly other
genres of music citing CBS’ decision to not air Drake’s “Rap Album of the Year” win at the this year’s ceremony and the lack of “Album of the Year” winners from the Hip-Hop community.

 

“I feel like Hip-Hop is little unappreciated,” said Cole. “Not to mention, rappers never win for album of the year. Even Kanye West, who if any rapper deserved it in the past ten years it would be Kanye West with Graduation.”

The Fayetteville, North Carolina native hopes his sophomore LP will put him alongside Lauryn Hill (The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill) and OutKast (Speakerboxxx/The Love Below) as the only Hip-Hop acts to ever win the Album of the Year Grammy.

While his first official single from Born Sinner, “Power Trip”, is moving up the charts, Cole took time during the Q&A to reflect on one track he missed out on being a part of.
“It was the song ‘Burn’ with Meek Mill and Big Sean. I was suppose to be on that,” admitted Cole.
He also revealed that he, Meek, and Sean had discussed doing a joint mixtape. When that project wasn’t able to materialize, the three rappers planned to release one track together, but Cole ultimately did not make it on the record.

While he missed the Meek Mill/Big Sean collabo, Cole reaffirmed that the joint album with Kendrick Lamar is still in the works, and he said his ultimate collaborations would be a song with 2Pac and Nas and one with Jay-Z and Eminem.
Cole clearly has a love for the rappers he grew up listening to, but he also appreciates the new class of emcees as well.

“There’s a lot of good stuff around the corner. Me, Ab-Soul, Schoolboy Q, Kendrick, that whole clique, Joey Bada$$… it’s a lot of heat coming.”

J. Cole’s Born Sinner LP is scheduled for release on June 25th.