J. Cole has been quiet doing J. Cole Things—biking around New York City, making beats on the beach, being quietly super rich—since WWI popped off earlier this spring, save for a few features that were probably already in the chamber, but it was only a matter of time before he took to his own track to say his piece on the whole thing. That’s what we finally got out of the blue tonight with “Port Antonio,” a quintessential Cole song: a moody beat, likely produced by Cole himself and sampling classic ’90s rap (“Dead Presidents”), laidback flow and exquisitely crafted, contemplative bars.
Cole spends the first part of “Port Antonio” reflecting on far he’s come from the rough upbringing that he muses on often; the headline-raps are stashed for the last half of the last verse, and they do not disappoint. He starts off addressing the widespread debate that bowing out of the Drake-Kendrick fracas has lowered his standing, rapping that he’s “smirkin at n-ggas tryin to besmirch” his name and “They see this fire in my pen and think I’m dodging smoke.”
Cole goes on to snidely comment on all the ancillary shenanigans that quickly took the beef beyond a mere battle to decide who’s the best, and invited in mudslinging, social media pundits pushing narratives, and bots to drive popularity. And from the way it all played out, he seems even more confident in his decision to stay out of it: “Lines got crossed, perhaps regrettably/My friends went to war, I walked away with all they blood on me/Now some will discredit me, try to wipe away my pedigree/But please, find a n-gga out that’s rappin this incredibly/My dawg texted me, I’ll share the words he said to me/’If you refuse to shoot a gun, don’t mean the gun ain’t deadly’/I guess in that metaphor, hypothetically the gun is me/I text him back like: ‘I guess a gun ain’t what I’m tryna be.’”
Some rap fans took Cole’s concession as grounds to dismiss him from the so-called Big Three, his reaction to that here is that he’s “finally free.” The last few bars suggest “Port Antonio” was recorded pretty recently, as Cole continues by acknowledging a recent narrative that he’s on Drake’s would-be Opp List. “They say I’m pickin sides, ay don’t you lie on me my n-gga/To start another war, ay Drake, you’ll always be my n-gga/I ain’t ashamed to say you did a lot for me, my n-gga/Fuck all the narratives.” (It would appear as if his olive branch has already fallen on receptive ears: Drake liked Cole’s post of the song on Instagram.)
Cole ends the song re-upping on the mission statement, in bars that feel perhaps addressed to Drake and himself: “Tappin back into your magic pen is what’s imperative/reminding these folks why we do it/it’s not for beefin, it’s for speakin our thoughts/pushin ourselves, reaching the charts.” The track rides out on a refrain of Cole singing “Y’all n-ggas ain’t stoppin me.” Which is to say, he took the summer off and let things die down, but now it’s time for the run-up to The Fall Off to resume. Jermaine’s back on the board.
