Cole's Inevitable Episode 6 Highlights - "Sideline Story" (Part 3)

• Cole showed Jay ‘Work Out.’ Jay seemed to like it, but Cole couldn’t remember how much (later he would come to find out Jay hated Work Out). Jay wasn’t enthusiastic about it. Then, he asked to see some of the Sean Garrett sessions and Cole was hesitant cuz he wasn’t confident in that material and had his heart set on ‘Work Out.’ Cole plays a track, and Jay-Z goes absolutely nuts. Cole’s like wtf this is the sht I just half-assed and the actual hit we just breezed over. Jay-Z is convinced this is the one.

• They mix and master the track (the one that was NOT Work Out) and Cole ultimately decides he can’t go through with putting it out as the single to the album. He goes back to Jay, and Jay agrees they shouldn’t drop it if it’s making Cole sick to his stomach. Cole is thankful for Jay’s openness for conversation and says their back-and-forths inspired how he’s handled running his own label. “My experience of being signed to an artist has shaped my experience as a person that has a label.”

• Cole at one point in this exchange told Jay that he felt like the one, and Jay goes:
  “I could fill a graveyard all full of the ones.” Bar.

• Cole & Ib play the track that almost got released and it’s terrible. Cole says “That sht was ass”

Cole's Inevitable Episode 6 Highlights - "Sideline Story" (Part 4)

• For Work Out, they had issues with clearances for the sample. Kanye had given publishing to like ~8 people. No one could track down Sumeke Rainey (Ye’s old gf). Cole found her job on google (he calls himself a google wizard) and called her being like please clear the sample.

• Initial comments from online/execs was that Work Out would flop. In retrospect, Cole was depressed at this time and anxiety for both Cole & Ib was super high. Cole’s career was in the balance.

• Cole realized he exhausted a lot of the best tracks he had for the album and there were only a few ones left that he could use (‘Lost Ones,’ ‘Breakdown,’ ‘Can’t Get Enough’).

• When making the album, Cole wasn’t himself. One example of this was when figuring out the tracklist, he met with Jay-Z & Mark Pitts, and didn’t bring Ib with him. He realizes this was a big mistake now, as Ib had always had a huge hand in the sequencing and overall decision making behind Cole’s albums.

• Cole was extremely involved at every aspect of the creative process (cover art, etc) for his other projects but for ‘Sideline Story,’ just wanted to get it done asap. Didn’t have the brain space for it.

• When putting the album together, Cole left some songs off that Ib wouldn’t have agreed with and he probably didn’t either in that moment but just had the mentality of “let’s get this out.”

Cole's Inevitable Episode 6 Highlights - "Sideline Story" (Part 5)

• Cole had a severe fear of flopping with the album, had seen Wale go through that disappointment in the numbers and how that wore on him. He didn’t want to go through that too. Described it as a pool of sharks, and if you flop with the debut album, you’re falling into that pool of sharks and your career is over.

• They announced the album on Twitter, and had the plan to announce it track by track. They start doing it, and then Beyoncé announces she’s pregnant on the VMA’s Mfs in the replies were trolling when they were announcing each track lmao. They laugh about it now, but Cole took it personally back then. He said it was an early stage of social media and that sht used to get to his head. If he had been more confident in himself, he could deflect those negative comments but because he was already second guessing himself they hit harder.

• Cole and Ib were on a call with Columbia execs. At the end of the call, they thought Cole was off the phone and started talking about first week sales projections saying 65k-75k. This made Cole’s heart drop, he couldn’t believe he was about to do under 100k (again, it was a different time and he didn’t want his career to be over). Wiz that year did 100k+, Kid Cudi had just did 100k+, Big Sean almost 100k, Drake did 400k+. Industry execs were placing bets that the album would flop.

Cole's Inevitable Episode 6 Highlights - "Sideline Story" (Part 6)

• They’re preparing for the worst, album drops and they do an album release party, album signing etc. The next day, Cole gets a call for the first day numbers. The first DAY was 115k, they started screaming. Ib says they thought they were gonna die. Final first week numbers were 220k.

• Ib and Cole said the takeaway from ‘The Sideline Story’ was that you could have a successful album, you could sell tickets and albums without a commercial single (Work Out didn’t start popping off until the album initially created a buzz). Built a fanbase off mixtapes and internet sht

• After the high of the album wore off, the energy turned to Cole’s realization that he hadn’t constructed the album the way he wanted to. He wanted to make a classic like Illmatic but hadn’t accomplished that. That being said, he knows now that there’s no 1 way to build a career (you don’t need to put out a classic first).

• Internally, Cole felt disappointed in himself and they never talked about it. “Talking about it would make it real.” The reaction to the album wasn’t bad at all, it just wasn’t “classic level.” Cole wanted it to “stop time” and it just wasn’t at that level.

• Cole immediately started working on ‘Born Sinner’ because he didn’t get his debut off like he wanted to. He wanted a do-over.

And that's it for the summaries right now.

Born Sinner episode was released yesterday and part 2 comes out in 2 days (Dec 5).

Then after that, 2014 Forest Hills Drive episodes drops Dec 9 and Dec 12.

Good work fam

Where can I hear this?

inevitable.live

Me and the homies gonna be there at MSG December 16th

Can’t wait man

At the after party for the Two Kings dinner, Cole went up to Jay off the Hennessy lol and Jay again said “I just need one!” Cole got super bold and said “When you were making Reasonable Doubt, did you have someone in your ear asking you for a hit?” Hov said something along the lines of “I respect that, you’re right.” And then never bothered Cole about it again. Ib said when he saw Cole go up to Jay his first thought was “We’re getting dropped”.

Omen speaks

4 episodes in and this s*** is INCREDIBLE

Episode 4 made me think of this

I have no clue why Kendrick's album played immediately after me playing Who Dat, I never use autoplay| :dead2:

This been true about Cole though tbh

Most of the reason J Cole became an Internet punching bag is because of his sincerity in an era where that’s not cool

Just got to the point where he broke down listening to Can I Holler At Ya? S*** is deep and emotional man

Anyone got a link for that sean garret track? Or a tweet i wanna hear it

anyone have a link of all the snippets he's played

I cant even hate on this.

bro broke down over his stepdad talkin bout can i holla at you

Glad to know they on better terms.

are the episodes available for download so I can play em offline?

bumping the come up now. school daze such an amazing track

Seconded, please and thanks.

I just want a compilation of all
The snippets he plays tbh

If I buy this do I have to listen on the browser or can I add to my Podcasts app on iPhone?

i've been super critical of coles music but he seems like a genuinely good person.

having emotions or insecurities in this era is an achilles heel. you have to act unfazed and inhuman to be considered cool