Chris Gotti, Irv’s brother, did this interview about five months ago, but it doesn’t seem like any of the major blogs picked up on this story at the time.

It’s especially relevant now given the recent J. Cole record and renewed speculation about where his relationship with Jay stands today.

Great pull. It definitely feels like based on the pods he was doing that although he is thankful for the opportunity that’s about where it stops short for him and everything else success wise was out of spite of Jay Z’s co-sign if you can even really call it that tbh. I see both sides of it but in the end he made it which is all that matters so I guess it worked out

Made cole one the biggest rappers in the world

I'm confused what people wanted Jay to do for him? Dre signed Kendrick and ain't did s*** for him either

Kendrick seemed more adamant about doing things his way and not having Dre put his hands in his career. Seemed like they have had great rapport behind the scenes over the years tho. I'm sure Dre being from Compton probably helped that too. Maybe that's what Cole wanted more of from Hov

Dre did a lot of work on GKMC and a lot of it was changed through his influence. He also mixed/mastered a lot of it

Not really GKMC was basically done when they brought it to Dre and he said it's perfect and doesn't need anything, he only helped with mixing on some songs but it still was mostly Ali

At the end of the day it's just business it's the same as Cole singing his own artists and not doing a lot for them and Cole is more relevant today musically than Jay

ridiculous, dre skimmed it and inserted his horrible headphones verse

It’s a real shame Cole was on his own during this

Wayne held Drakes hand to stardom
Dre had a huge influence on GKMC and the marketing of Kendrick as the new west coast GOAT

Cole had to get it on his own because Hov still had an artist mentality and wanted to “kill” him

I’m sure it made Cole stronger tho, hope we get more insight on The Fall Off

j cole was always a blueprint 3 type rapper that's why he sucks so bad

The big difference is Kendrick was also signed to TDE and those guys probably did all the things Cole was asking Jay for.

Jay put him on The Blueprint 3 which was a bigger look than Dre mixing a song or 2
TB3 is the last Jay album where he was still super hot commercially (not including WTT)

Compton was basically a Kendrick and Dre collab album

One verse on one of the Jays most forgetful albums means nothing

Hov even forced Cole to make Mr Nice Watch and waste a Hov feature on it when Cole wanted him on a better song like Sideline stories, damn shame

Kendrick was already a household name by then wtf his features helped the album more than they helped him

TDE was a indie label same as Cole having Dreamville (he even wanted to sign Kendrick until he found out Dre was already f***ing with him)

And yet Dre still did things for Kendrick

While Cole was on his own the entire time

Pathetic

That's really not true they worked on GKMC in his studio and the producers would bounce ideas off Dre and ask for advice on mixing it. Dre wasn't necessarily hands on but when asked for help he gave help

Nope. He only mixed Real. Terrace Martin talked about it a week ago

instagram.com/reel/DTWRWxQEtt7

Other than that the only other parts he contributed to the album was his verse on Compton and The Recipe which was tacked on as a bonus after the fact

That’s still way more than what Hov did on Cole’s debut

If anything Hov had a negative impact

Held him back from dropping FNL as his debut and wouldn’t listen to Cole about hopping on a better song than mr nice watch

Stop trolling bro
FNL might've gave him better reviews on the internet but no way it would've been bigger than Cole World, what song on FNL was gonna be bigger than Work Out or Can't Get Enough? Jay actually helped him by telling him he needs hits

Jay has more monthly listeners on Spotify and if he dropped an album today it would overshadow The Fall Off

You don’t think that’s meaningfully different?

Top and his staff had years of experience trying, failing and succeeding to break different artists before Kendrick became the focus. They kept pressure on the label to work Kendrick’s records, helped develop him as an artist early on, worked to promote his songs in parallel with interscope etc… Plus Kendrick said on heart pt 6 they literally gave him clothes and a house to stay in lol

I could be misremembering but I thought Dreamville was just J Cole and his manager until the 2010s. The same infrastructure, relationships and support probably wasn’t there

Sideline Story dropped at the right time. Friday Night Lights would've done negative numbers

Jay has a 30+ year career with multiple hits and big features come on Cole is definitely outselling Hov today