J Cole Interview: Habits That Instantly Boost Your Artistry!

I don't have a lust of money, and I don't have a— I actually don't even have a love of money.

I don't buy into like, "Yeah, I'm the man." Like, nah, I feel like I got a lot left.

Everybody got something to be thankful for. Even a homeless man, if he wanted to, he could be like, "Yo, I'm breathing today." I'm not actually good at being resourceful.

I'm getting better.

He's a rapper, record producer, and songwriter. He received a nomination for Best New Artist at the 54th Grammy Awards. He's the first rapper in 25 years to have a platinum-selling album without any guest appearances. He's J. Cole, and here's my take on his top 10 rules for success. Number 1 is my personal favorite, and make sure to stick around all the way to the end for a special bonus clip.

Do you want to make a lot of money?

I do want to make a lot of money, but, but that's only for safety purposes. I don't have a lust of money, and I don't have a— I actually don't even have a love of money. Like, you got people, I know these people, you know, they're my friends, and they're also rappers that I know, they love money. They're addicted to getting money. And that's cool too, because that's what makes some of the most successful businessmen. I don't love money like that. I love the comfort and the safety and the ability to retire my mom, or like if there's a problem with my brother, or if my father has a problem, I like that. Feeling of being able to provide. So that's the thing I do love about money. But to tell you the truth, what makes me the happiest is the music, working on the music. I'm in the studio right now with El Varna. I'm producing for another person. That makes me happy. That makes me way more happy than getting a check. My album comes out, the response is amazing. That makes me way more happy. If I write a song, I made "Let Nas Down," a song off my album. When I made that song, the feeling that I made, that I had after I made that song is way more important to me than making money, you know? But yeah, of course I wanna make a lot of money so I can be safe just in case something pops off in America and I need it.

Like, I don't buy into my own hype. You know, like, I'm grateful for the reactions and the appreciation, but I don't buy into, like, "Yeah, I'm the man." Like, nah, I feel like I got a lot left. Like, I'm gonna be here for years. Like, being hot in 2013 is cool, You know, and being critically acclaimed in 2013 is cool, but like, what about 2020? Like, where am I gonna be? I don't wanna be making a documentary 20 years from now talking about like this as if it was the end. I wanna still be present and still be making music. I wanna be like, you know, Bruce Springsteen or something, like making songs that are relevant. If a tragedy happens, make a song and it's— and I can just put it out and people— You know, people know I'm still speaking for them. I want to be like that. I'mma have my art always appreciated.

What was going through your mind when everything was just falling apart and you don't even know, like, what the— like, you don't even know what to do. And basically everything was just falling apart and you just trying to find a way. Like, what was going through your mind? Did you ever think like, damn, what if this doesn't happen for me?

You know, um, my mind never worked like that in the beginning, like when I wasn't on, I never had those thoughts. But I can relate to that only because there came a point after my first album was already out where I started like really getting down on myself. Like, man, like I really, like, I really just dropped the ball, man. Like this didn't go how I wanted it to go. Like I ain't come out how I foresaw myself coming out. And I was really getting down on myself. And it felt— it really did feel way more— and everybody else is looking at me like, you crazy, you had the number one album in the country, you got a Grammy nominee, and I'm not seeing or appreciating any of that. So what I can say is you have to look— you have to stop looking at what you don't have and what's not happening for you and start appreciating like what you do actually have. Like, my man, you got on nice watch, like your hat is fresh, like you You're in New York City, it's the land of opportunity, you know what I mean? You're a good-looking guy. I'm sure you got maybe a girlfriend. Like, there's a lot of things, your family. There's a lot of things to be grateful for. And that's the only way you can climb out of like a place of focusing on what you don't have is by focusing on like, man, what do I have to be thankful for? And everybody got something to be thankful for. Even a homeless man, if he wanted to, he could be like, yo, I'm breathing today. Like, you know what I mean? Like, my arms work, my legs work. You can start very small and that'll— that it's gonna— it's a process, but that's how you can get about like of a negative space like that.

Music is my passion, man. Production, besides the actual art of rapping, I want to— there's a lot I want to accomplish on the production end and the production side. I would love to try my hand at acting. My mother's an actress. She tells me all the time that she thinks it's in me. She's been telling me that for years. Boy, you an actor, I'm telling you. She always tells me, you know, so I would love to try my hand at that and see how many—

Do you use your access? I mean, you probably could call Will Smith and get some advice.

That's very— I could.

Do you do that?

I have the connection at least to do that. I don't. I guess 'cause I'm not passionate about it yet. It's just a thought. But hopefully, when I become passionate or when I take it serious, I would use that card. You just gave me the card to use. You gave me the idea for it, so— But yeah, I do have access. I'm not actually good at being resourceful. I'm getting better. That's another thing to be a great businessman. I think you have to be incredibly resourceful. I'm new to business, period. I never was good with money. So having money is new to me, and therefore using my resources, being a great businessman is new to me.

The whole reason I was in New York was 'cause I wanted to do music. So school was just like, in my eyes, school was just like the temporary thing. That I was doing while I was chasing a dream. So then about my sophomore, junior years, when I was like, you know what, wait, like, I gotta refocus and reshift my energy to the music thing. That's when I was going on rampage. I probably hit up every A&R on MySpace, but I sent, like, I sent these same people messages, you know, like, through MySpace or whatever, or called their office. I called it up, it was like, yeah, you reached Darryl Jones for Atlantic Records, please messages and messages at the beat.

I left the longest rap on his voicemail, dawg.

I just rapped on his voicemail, and I think I might have left my, like, my number at the end or something like that. But like, of course I never got called back, you know. I wouldn't even call somebody back who did that, but it's just, just to show you the type of shit I was doing. I was trying anything and everything. So time was running out, it was coming close to graduation, and I hadn't really made any major moves, but I always felt like it was coming. Like, it was coming. So man, it took, um, after I graduated, it still took another year and a half after I graduated to actually get to Jay and then get all that stuff rolling. But you know, it's all a process, man. You just gotta just keep— you gotta believe, have faith. I always felt like it was right around the corner, so that's why I just kept going.

Let's talk about having faith in that and belief. How did you remain at that point to have like a strong faith in, in what you're doing?

Man, I don't— 'cause I felt like for years, this is years of work and years of me knowing that this is what I'm supposed to do. I think when you believe in yourself, then you know, like you just know. So even when you're working a part-time job and you're getting paid $8 an hour and you like, damn, I don't want to be here, you know, if you truly know what's coming, then you don't mind doing that because you know it's temporary. This is temporary and it's a temporary sacrifice. Price for what I want to end up doing. So that's what kept me going, because I never questioned it. It was always like, well, I'm closer, I'm closer today, I'm closer than I was yesterday. And that mentality is gonna get you through it. If not, that's what anything— that's not even just music, that's life, period.

And to expand on that, you believe that you, you control your destiny, where your life goes. How important is that? Please, I want, I want you to tell the people out there, inspire them, the story, like how you came up to this where you are right now.

Certain things happen in your life you have no control over, but life is about how you react to those things and handle those things, um, and those— I don't know, those occurrences or whatever. So I absolutely believe that you choose, like, where you want to go, what you want to be, and it's up to you to get there.

As a rapper, there's very few greats that I studied and I still continue to study, and Nas is obviously One of them is Obvious. I really had his lyrics printed on my wall. They used to have a site, it was called OLA, Original Hip Hop Lyrics whatever,.com or archive. Yeah, somebody know. And then you print them out. So I would print these joints out and I would print them up and hang them up on my wall. And literally, if you walk in my room, you might be like, "What's wrong with this kid?" I'm staring at the wall like this, just reading the lyrics because I wanted to know what it was like to be that good, you know what I mean? Like, and I was rapping at the time, so I wanted to know, and it was my goal to be that good. I wanted to somehow try to master the style. I felt like if I read it enough, if I listen— I used to go to sleep listening into I Am, you know what I mean? People be sleeping on that album. I'll be trying to tell them that man's spitting on for real on that album. I used to go to sleep listening to that album because I wanted to try to master the style if I could, you know what I mean? You can't master that style, but I felt about you how you probably felt about Rakim or Kane or G-Rap or whoever it was that you looked at like the god, that's how I felt.

Any musician, period, any artist, I think just absolutely do what's in your heart, period. Say what's on your mind, speak what's in your heart and how you really feel. When you're trying to be something else, when you're trying to fit into what's going on, it's like you kind of stray away from your path a little bit. And sometimes you want to expand your style and like grow, and that's always good, but like never veer too far from who you are, you know, as a person.

The best way to establish yourself on the internet is to start small. Once again, be humble. Approach one of these blogs. First of all, you gotta make sure your music is correct, 'cause there's a million niggas online doing music. But once you feel like your music is truly correct, stay humble, start small, go to like some of the smaller blogs that, you know, they don't get as many hits as Deny Rice, but maybe they'll post your shit if they like it, you know? Shout out to DC2PC and, you know, like Part of Me Duke and people like smaller blogs the blogs that I fuck with, Herfection, you know, maybe if they feeling your shit, you got a shot. Like, if they put it up, there's a way better chance that the big blogs will pick it up, especially after seeing it, you know. If Herfection picks it up, maybe DC2BC puts it up, maybe Pardon Me Dude puts it up. That is 3 more smaller blogs that still have good followings that are putting your shit up, so the bigger blogs like the 2 Dope Boys might pick it up now. And then after they pick it up now— so that's the best way. Just start, have big dream, and then just start small, and then You know, but the internet is not the end-all be-all, man. It's a lot more to go.

Are you going into a club with $80,000 in a garbage bag like some people we know?

No, I've seen that. I've seen that live in person. I can't do that.

I don't have—

I'm too afraid of losing, of going back over there to ever blow money without thinking about it. There's a song on my album called Chaining Day. And this is the type of artist I am, and this album is like this to a T. Most rappers are gonna say, "Paid $100,000 for the chain," and they just gonna show you they chain. That's what they song, "I paid $100,000 for the chain. I paid $100,000 for the chain. I paid $100,000 for the chain." And that's their whole song. And they gonna, whole song they gonna tell you how they spent $100,000 for their chain. My song is gonna tell you like, my thought process before I paid all of this money for some jewelry, which was really, it was like this, like, oh my God, like, yo, yes, do I want it? Yes. How much?

People pay that?

And then my internal conversation was like, yo, you know better. Like, you definitely know, you know better than to spend this type of money. But do you want it? Is it worth it? What's the investment? Well, when I'm on stage, it's gonna look really good so you can say it's for your career. Man, it does look nice. How much? And then it's a more internal conversation. Man, you know what you could do with all that money? You know whose lives you could change with that type of money you're gonna spend out on chain? So that other song was, I spent $100,000 on a chain. I spent $100,000. And then in my song, you get all of these internal thoughts that led me to finally be like, all right, Here you go. And I wrote the check, or at least I gave him my card, you know what I mean? But I, I gave you my thought process first before I just spent $100,000 on this chain.

J. Cole value-added.

When we young, and even when we old, the world is constantly pumping us with images, right, about what life should be about, constantly telling us what life is about, what it should be about. In the States, it's called the American Dream. I don't know what the they call it in London, but I know y'all got it, and I know it includes the same shit. What does it always include? A lot of fucking money, a big-ass house, a brand new car, and a wife that's like not even genetically possible to fucking have, right? That's what they tell us we need to be happy, even though the world is set up so that 99% of us can't never have this shit. But we idolize the people that do have it. We sit and we watch and we go, oh my God, their life looks so perfect. Look what they're doing. Oh my God. And I came here tonight to tell y'all, I was the same person that was sitting down watching like, oh my God, it looks so perfect, it must be nice. I'ma go get it. And then I went and got this shit. But when I got there, I'm telling y'all, up close and personal, that shit don't feel right. That shit don't seem right, man. And I'm coming back to tell y'all, all that shit they told us is bullshit and it's not what's important and it's not what matters. How do I know that? I know that because right now it's a man, he got millions of dollars, he got a billion dollars, and he's miserable, right? But you got a family that come from where we come from, worse conditions than what we come from, they couldn't afford a ticket to this fucking show tonight if they wanted, but yet somehow they got more happiness and joy in their life right now than this man will ever have in his. How is that possible? How is that even possible? That everything we thought we needed, he got, and he's fucking miserable. And they have nothing and they got happiness. What do they have that he don't got? What's that? Fucking British people, man. You small.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I made this video because Khari Butler asked me to. So if there's a famous entrepreneur you want me to profile next, Leave it in the comments below and I'll see what I can do. I'd also love to know which of the 10 clips had the biggest impact on you and why, what change you're gonna make as a result of watching this video. Leave it in the comments and I will join in the discussion. Finally, I want to give a quick shout out to Patricia Ramboletti. Thank you so much for pre-ordering my book. It means a lot to me. It means the world to me. For those of you who want your chance at a shout out in a future video, you can check out the information in the description below. Thank you guys so much for watching. Continue to believe, or whatever your one word is, and I'll see you soon.

This thing is a long-distance race. This business is a long-distance thing. You want to be relevant, you want to be around, you want to be providing for your family 10, 15, 20 years from now. You just said Jay-Z's about to be 44. He put out his first album when he was 25. That's 20 years of relevancy, you know? And like, I was just— So that's what it teaches me, being around all of these guys. Even Uncle Wes, like, been in this for a while.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? He's been around the game of basketball for a long time. It's longevity. It's not— So when I make decisions, whether which single, this show or that show or this tour, Should I get on this feature? Should I take this money to do this song? Or should I make my decisions more calculated about, is this something that's gonna be really, like, does this further my career or does this, you know, I think about things in that manner. What does this do for me in the long run?