Did Kendrick Lamar’s ‘The Pop Out’ Concert Have A J. Cole Reference?

Kendrick Lamar fans are convinced they found a J. Cole-related Easter egg in their replays of Kendrick’s Pop Out — Ken & Friends concert. You may remember that at the outset of the titanic conflict between Kendrick Lamar and his longtime rival Drake, J. Cole was actually the one who took up the gauntlet thrown down by Ken on “Like That” first. However, Cole bowed out relatively quickly, leaving the other two stars to battle it out over the course of several increasingly vitriolic diss tracks, including the megahit, “Not Like Us.” So…

Did Kendrick Lamar’s Pop Out Concert Have A J. Cole Reference?

According to some fans, yes. During the intro to Kendrick’s 2015 anthem “Alright,” fans swear they noticed an ad-lib that isn’t on the original, meaning that the backing track played during the show was likely taken from “Black Friday,” a double single released by Kendrick and Cole in 2015 on which they rapped on each other’s beats (Ken used Cole’s 2014 Forest Hills Drive track “A Tale Of 2 Citiez.”

Now, as for why Ken’s DJ would throw on that version of the backing track… who knows, really, other than Kendrick and his DJ? Maybe in pulling together the instrumentals for the performance, they dropped the wrong song in the folder. Or perhaps it was a nod and a wink to J. Cole himself, acknowledging him for withdrawing from the fight for his own personal reasons. Honestly, it was such a tiny moment (heck, it took people a week of rewatches to notice it in the first place), maybe it means nothing.

But the way the battle between Drake and Ken played out shows that the Compton native is nothing if not supremely calculating, so there probably is a reason… he’s just not going to tell us about it.