Joey Badass Talks About J. Cole Using His "Waves" Beat For "False Prophets"
“I didn’t know it was going to be on the radio every day. That sh*t is weird.”
This past December, J. Cole dropped a short documentary that featured two new tracks. One of them, “False Prophets,” found Cole rapping over Joey Badass’ Freddie Joachim-produced “Waves” beat. While some listeners had accused Cole for jacking the New York rapper’s work, Joey defended Cole, saying that he had permitted Cole to do so. In a recent interview with Power 106, Joey reveals more on this topic, explaining that Cole contacted him in the summer of last year. Joey explains:
“So I’m thinking, like, he wants me to get on a track or something like that […] We link up, I come to the studio, we politicking, and then he’s like, ‘I want to play you this record.’ Right, so I’m like, OK, still thinking this is a track for me to hop on. [...] He finally got back to doing the things that he used to do, which just made him happy; like sitting on the couch watching Netflix or going on YouTube and just browsing beats. One day he was writing, and he resorted to his old way of writing, which was going on YouTube and writing [to] some beats, which is what most of us do. So he comes across the ‘Waves’ beat, and he knew it was mine and everything, but, like, he heard the beat and […] it just sparked something. [...] To be honest, I didn’t know [“False Prophets”] was going to be, like, promoting the [4 Your Eyez Only] album; I didn’t know it was going to be on the radio every day. That sh*t is weird.”
Watch him explain in further detail in the video clip below.