J. Cole Quotes

I have a little bit of that gamer spirit in me. I just don’t have the time to be a gamer. But in another life, I would be one.

When you’re headlining, people are paying to come see you specifically. It’s a different kind of pressure, because you’ve got to deliver. You’ve got to give these people what they paid for. It’s a different mind state, a different type of mentality, but it’s honestly a pretty good problem to have, you know?

Touring is very routine. You get to the city, you go to the hotel, you got to be at the hotel by a certain time – it’s very routine. I’m not a very structured person, so when I get some structure, it’s cool; it’s good for me.

I feel like this: Whatever is in your path and in your heart, you need to do.

I was a class clown. At 12, I was definitely clowning. I was making all the jokes. But I was smart, so the teachers didn’t know what to do with me.

My fans love me for me, my beats, my rhymes.

No rapper in the world from Jay-Z to Tupac to Biggie has 100 percent love on everything they do.

I feel like I’m a New Yorker because I really know the city. I actually tell the drivers where to go – I have this bad habit, I always question the drivers. I do that all the time because I feel like I know the best way, when really it’s like, ‘Yo, man, shut up. This dude does this every day of his life.’

I’m not gonna be bad at anything, and I want to actually be the best at anything I’m doing. So if I’m playing basketball, if I’m taking the SATs, like, there’s a competitive spirit behind it. With production, it’s the same thing.

There was the time I bought three cars in the span of three or four weeks. It was crazy; it wasn’t greedy. It was mine, my girl’s, my mom’s. I got Benzes for my ladies. But I felt crazy. You have to understand I come from a world where we’re very modest. But that’s not greedy. That’s nice, right?

College isn’t in everyone’s hearts. I am living proof, though, that school doesn’t mess up your plans. It gives you more experiences to write about.

I just feel like, with rappers, there’s so much complacency. It’s like, ‘Oh, I’m a rapper. I’m successful. I make money. That’s all that matters.’ But there’s a lot of stuff going on in the world. Whether or not you’re aware of it, it’s happening.

People think because I’ve got some success, I’ve made it, but in my eyes it’s like, ‘How long has Jay Z been in the business? How many albums has he got?’ Not that I’m trying to be Jay Z, but I am trying to be around for a long time.

If I was to go to sleep before midnight, I would feel weird about myself, like I wasted a day. My most productive hours are between midnight and five.

Usually I start with a beat, I start making a beat, and my producer side is making the beat. And on a good day, my rapper side will jump in and start the writing process – maybe come up with a hook or start a verse. Sometimes it just happens like that. A song like ‘Lights Please’ happens like that.

I now possess the tools as a producer and a songwriter to really just go out and make smashes all day long. I could make an album full of smash records that got pop appeal. But my heart is in hip-hop. My heart is in telling stories. And it’s like therapy for me.

You can’t reverse fame. You can lose all the money, but you’ll never lose people knowing you.

I’m here to spread a message of hope. Follow your heart. Don’t follow what you’ve been told you’re supposed to do.

I always feel like it’s two key ingredients when it comes to following your dreams, making something happen that the average person deems difficult. If you truly believe it, that’s step one. Step two, is, you know, the hard work that goes along with it.

I still wanna rap better than everybody else, and I wanna say important things.

As much as it might look like, to someone else, that I’m successful, I never feel like I’m anywhere. The further I go, I still feel equally further from my eventual goal. Because as I grow, I get more goals. I’m never content.

I do put a lot of God in my music, but not because I’m super religious. There are a lot of demons in my music, too. I acknowledge both.

I think if I did something in the pop world right now, it would be for Rihanna. I’d love to do something production wise for her.

When I was in college my girl got me a job at the doctor’s office she was working at. I was a file clerk. No disrespect but I don’t think a man can do that job. It takes so much meticulous and precise file-keeping.

In hip-hop, there’s not a lot of love. There’s not a lot of love being spread. It’s always like ‘I’m stuntin’ on you raps, or I’m better than you raps.’ It’s not a lot of ‘Yo man, I idolize you raps.’

I met Will Smith twice. I didn’t talk to him for too long but I was trying to let him know that my age group grew up watching him – he was the coolest guy on television and the coolest guy in movies.

I actually started off majoring in computer science, but I knew right away I wasn’t going to stay with it. It was because I had this one professor who was the loneliest, saddest man I’ve ever known. He was a programmer, and I knew that I didn’t want to do whatever he did.

I worked in ad sales. I would call up local businesses and try to get them to buy ads in the paper. The whole time, I felt like I was just scamming people.

Barack Obama would not be President if he were dark skin. You know what I mean? That’s just the truth. I might not be as successful as I am now if I was dark skin.

The thing about being an artist today is you get to develop right in front of people’s eyes before you even put out an album.