Since World War I broke out earlier this spring, J. Cole has been quietly doing J. Cole things—riding bikes in New York City, playing gongs and drums on the beach, and quietly getting super rich— Except for a few features that may already be in the room, but it’s only a matter of time before he has his say on the whole thing. That’s what we finally get out of the blues tonight with “Port Antonio,” a quintessential Cole song: a moody beat that could have been produced by Cole himself, and samples classic ’90s rap (“Dead President”), a laid-back flow and a carefully crafted, contemplative bar.
In the first part of “Port Antonio,” Cole reflects on his often brooding experience of a difficult upbringing. The title raps are hidden in the second half of the final verse, and they don’t disappoint. He began by addressing the widespread debate that quitting the Drake-Kendrick feud had lowered his stature, saying he was “smirking at the n-ggas trying to sully his name” and that “they saw what I wrote of flames, thinking I was hiding from the smoke.
From there, he said more or less what he said during his infamous stage retreat: “I won’t lose a battle, dog, I’ll lose a brother/I’ll gain an enemy/And this What is it all for?
Cole went on to sarcastically comment on all the ancillary shenanigans that quickly took the feud beyond a simple fight to decide who was the best and invited smears, social media experts pushing the narrative, and bots to Increase popularity. Judging by the way it all unfolded, he seemed more confident in his decision to stay out of it: “The line was crossed, regrettably perhaps/My friends went to war and I left with their blood on me/ Now some people are gonna smear me, try to erase my lineage/But please find a rapper so unbelievable n-gga/My dude text me and I’ll share what he said to me/” If you refuse to shoot, don’t “That doesn’t mean the gun isn’t lethal” / I guess in this metaphor, let’s say the gun is me / I texted him and said, “I guess the gun isn’t what I want .
