J. Cole Wasn’t ‘Pandering’ When He Assessed That ‘There’s A Lot Of Fire Female Rappers’

J. Cole is the latest person to feature on Kevin Hart’s Hart To Heart talk show on Peacock. Cole’s episode debuted on the streamer this morning, July 27, and covered a lot of ground in 44 minutes.

The Dreamville boss gave pro-tips for combatting social media addiction, contextualized his standing in rap — he’s “more disconnected” from the discourse because he’s “fulfilled” and “grateful” — and professed his love for basketball before assessing rap as a whole.

“I think it’s fire. It’s a whole different ballgame — whole different crop of young superstars and styles, you know what I mean?” Cole said about 29 minutes in. “To me, I’ve been feeling like this for, like, maybe a year or two. It’s like — I hate to say it almost ’cause it sounds like pandering, but I really do think, like, man, there’s a lot of fire female rappers.”

He continued, “I feel like they’re doing some of the most exciting — commercially, they’re doing some of the most exciting [things]. They’re giving us a lot of fire moments. I feel like that’s something that wasn’t around when we was growing up. […] You always had one. Lil’ Kim, Foxy, Eve. There was always one, but there could never be more than one, almost, it felt like. Now, it’s like, bro, we getting moments and moments and moments. I think that’s hard.”

The rest of Cole’s conversation with Hart touched on his patience in business, “mindful” approach to spending his money, and his future goals outside of music.

Watch the Hart To Heart clip above or watch the full episode on Peacock.