Rapper J. Cole on Thursday night released a new documentary about the making of his upcoming fourth album, and 12 hours later the internet is convinced that one of the album’s songs is a shot at Kanye West, who spent a portion of last month in the hospital following what’s been described as a nervous breakdown.
In the documentary, titled Eyez and available to view on the streaming service Tidal, Cole performs a song called False Prophets in which he skewers a rapper “who’s falling apart but we deny it.” He goes on to say there was a time when the rapper “was my hero, maybe” and “that’s the reason why his fall from grace is hard to take.”
On social media, fans suspected the rapper in question — whom Cole accuses of putting his “ego in charge of every move” — is West, who was released this week from UCLA Medical Center after being admitted on November 21.
The hospitalisation followed a string of incidents in which West made inscrutable comments during concerts about Jay Z, Beyonce, Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump. On November 20 he cancelled a show at the Forum in Inglewood three hours before it was set to begin.
Cole’s new album, 4 Your Eyez Only, is due on Decemeber 9, according to a pre-order page on iTunes. It follows the Grammy-nominated 2014 Forest Hills Drive, which was released on the same date in 2014.
