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The hip-hop star kicked off 2023 by dropping a track using a beat he found by an unknown producer.
J. Cole hasn’t released a song since 2021, but the hip-hop star kicked off the new year by dropping a track using a beat he found on YouTube from an unknown producer.
The new single, “Procrastination (Broke),” was released on Jan. 18 to the YouTube channel of an indie producer from Brooklyn named bvtman, who is a fan of the artist. As the story goes, J. Cole hit a creative block and was perusing the internet for inspiration when he searched “J. Cole type beat” on YouTube and came across bvtman’s instrumental.
“On a day when I couldn’t find much motivation, I was looking for anything to inspire me,” Cole wrote in a message to bvtman, GQ reports. “Out of curiosity, I typed in ‘J. Cole type beat’ into YouTube. Yours was the first I saw. I pressed play, focused, and wrote this.”
J. Cole decided to rap over the beat and gave bvtman permission to share it on his YouTube channel. “This song should live on your channel and serve as a thank you to you and every producer out there cooking up and sharing their work with the world,” Cole wrote, Hip Hop DX reports. “This is for you and whoever else need to hear it. God bless bro and keep doing what you do!”
Bvtman posted a response to his Instagram page. “It’s crazy how this happened,” he wrote. “Randomly driving on the high with my shorty and I get a text from @kingofqueenz25 saying Cole fuccs with my beats. I almost ain’t believe this was real life…. But it is.”
J. Cole is known for paying it forward and giving back to the community. Here are five ways the Grammy-winning artist has come through for the culture:
According to Hip Hop DX, Cole was the subject of speculation last month when he cleared his Instagram page, usually a signal that an artist announcement is imminent. Prognosticators believed that an album drop was in the works or the release of the “Creed III” soundtrack for which Cole’s Dreamville record label is the executive producer.
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