J. Cole has detailed the origins of his new song ‘Procrastination (Broke)’, revealing that it began after the rapper “typed in ‘J. Cole type beat’ into YouTube”.
Producer Bvtman uploaded ‘Procrastination (Broke)’ to his YouTube channel today (January 19). The three-minute track is accompanied by a screenshot of a text message thread, in which J. Cole thanks Bvtman “and every producer out there cooking up and sharing their work with the world.”
Cole went on to explain how he came across the beat “on a day when I couldn’t find much motivation”. The rapper continued: “Out of curiosity, I typed in ‘J. Cole type beat’ into YouTube. Yours was the first I saw. I pressed play, focused, and wrote this.” J. Cole said that ‘Procrastination (Broke)’ should “live on [Bvtman’s] channel”.
“This is some shit that would normally stay in the vault, but I don’t want to hold onto the music like that no more”, J. Cole added. “This is for you and whoever else need to hear it.”
Bvtman elaborated on the impromptu collaboration in his own message shared to Instagram today. The producer said he was “randomly driving on the high[way]” when he received a text from J. Cole’s longtime manager Ibrahim “IB” Hamad. The message said that “[J. Cole] fuccs with my beats”, Bvtman recalled.
He continued: “If you know me you know what this post means to me & what this song means to me. If you know me you know this is my peace finally, my dream… I almost ain’t believe this was real life…. But it is”.
‘Procrastination (Broke)’ marks J. Cole’s first solo release since the 2021 single, ‘Heaven’s EP’. The rapper’s latest album, ‘The Off-Season’, arrived that same year, and scored J. Cole a Lyricist of The Year nod at the 2022 BET Awards.
In a three-star review of ‘The Off-Season, NME wrote: “The North Carolina rapper eschews the bombast of old to focus on quietly dazzling wordplay, drawing the same meticulousness from his guest artists”.