J. Cole says he already regrets Kendrick Lamar diss track

By Issy Ronald, CNN

(CNN) — J. Cole said he already regrets releasing a Kendrick Lamar diss track in the midst of his ongoing beef with his fellow musician.

Videos posted on social media showed Cole talking to the crowd at Dreamville Festival on Sunday, two days after releasing his new album “Might Delete Later,” and apologizing for one of its songs, titled “7 Minute Drill.”

“I’m so proud of (‘Might Delete Later’), except for one part,” he said. “It’s one part of that sh*t that makes me feel like, man that’s the lamest sh*t I did in my f**king life, right?”

He added: “I damn near had a relapse … I ain’t gonna lie to y’all. The past two days have felt terrible. It let me know how good I’ve been sleeping for the past 10 years.”

In the song, Cole ripped Lamar with lyrics like “He averagin’ one hard verse like every 30 months or somethin’” and “He still doin’ shows, but fell off like the Simpsons.”

It came after pair’s long-running rivalry intensified last October when Drake and J. Cole collaborated on the hit “First Person Shooter,” in which they implied that they were the “big three” of the hip-hop world, alongside Lamar.

Lamar apparently took exception to that and fired back in March, in a verse of Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That,” that there was no big three, “just big me.”

This echoed his verse on Big Sean’s 2013 “Control,” in which he named his fellow rappers, saying “I got love for you all, but I’m tryna murder you.” Lamar later said in an interview with Hot 97’s “Cipha Sounds & Rosenberg” show that he was “saying that I’m the most hungry in this,” rather than making a statement about talent.

Two days after releasing the latest salvo in this back-and-forth, Cole apologized on stage and asked forgiveness for the “misstep” so that he “can get back to my true path.”

“I want to say right now tonight, how many people think Kendrick Lamar is one of the greatest motherf**kers to ever touch a f**king microphone?” he said, while the audience cheered.

The two have worked together before as, along with Drake, they have emerged as among the most influential hip-hop artists of their generation. All three have won multiple Grammy Awards, while Lamar received the 2018 Pulitzer Prize, making him the first non-classical or jazz musician to win it.

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