It’s official: Wale and J. Cole are back in the studio together. Wale shared a clip on his Instagram of a studio session with the caption, “Working on new vibes,” and Cole was present, sitting in a chair at the mixing board. However, for some reason, Wale deleted the Instagram Story from his account, but not before the Internet made sure to immortalize the potential collab.
The short snippet is too brief to really make any comment on the music playing in the background, but just the fact that these two are in the studio again is enough of a cause for celebration. The two artists have a long history of collaborations, but have not worked together since 2015, when the two linked up for “The Pessimist.”
In 2016, a riff between the two friends became evident when J. Cole released “False Prophets” in December. The song didn’t explicitly mention Wale, but Cole was clearly referencing him when he rapped about a rapper “who wanna win so bad” but is “so bitter he can’t see his own blessings.” As a response, Wale dropped "Groundhog Day" the very next day. “I'm heavily flawed, but far from a false prophet,” Wale rapped on that song, clearly revealing he also thought Cole was calling him out on his song.
A few weeks later, during an appearance on Complex’s Everyday Struggle, Wale seemed to reference the song when speaking about his fans. “All I was thinking about was, ‘You know what? Cole was right. I got fans, fuck all that other shit,’” Wale said. Wale has since admitted that their small fight brought them closer together. After all, they were pictured at a basketball gamethe day after “Groundhog Day” was released, so clearly, all was well even back then. But now that the two are close enough to be working together again we all have something to look forward to.
