East Coast Dreamville, rap label frontman, J. Cole recently released a new song, “Snow on Tha Bluff”, that stirred up quite a bit of controversy. In the song, he takes a rapid flow that is almost resemblant to his verse on the Grammy award-winning song with 21 Savage, “A lot.” The “No Role Modelz” rapper vents his frustrations with a young lady activist on social media who he says, “She wear her heart on her sleeve.” As the song expands, he speculates how she might come from a place of systematic privilege where she was taught racial issues from a young age. J. Cole diving in, “So when I see something that’s valid, I listen, But shit, it’s something about the queen tone that’s botherin’ me.” At one point he advises the girl to speak to her audience like children as they’re more susceptible to understanding and pushing her message along. To parallel this he goes into how he feels like he’s not doing enough for the movement and for his children’s future.

Most of the people online speculated that the girl Cole could’ve been talking about is Chicago activist, poet, and rapper Noname. One of the reasons as to why is that since the latest surge of Black Lives Matter, she’s been one of the most outspoken rappers about the issues that have been so prevalent in the community. On May 29, she Tweeted, “Poor black folks all over the country are putting their bodies on the line in protest for our collective safety and y’all favorite top selling rappers not even willing to put a tweet up. N****s whole discographies be about black plight and they no where to be found.” Many speculate this tweet prompted Cole into responding publicly seeing as only 24 hours later, he would be spotted at a BLM protest in his hometown of Fayetteville, NC.

The main issue many listeners of “Snow On Tha Bluff” have expressed is that Cole seems to assume a lot of her upbringing. Meanwhile, others did not take kindly to Cole insinuating that she should “calm down” and took this as another man trying to silence the voice of a woman of color. While thousands expressed their discontent in the words spoken by J. Cole – there were still many from his camp that came to the rapper’s defense.

48 hours later and Noname had come back with a response track – “Song 33”, produced by Madlib. While the song itself is only just over a minute – this was more than enough time that this young activist needed to call out Cole. Noname is quick to name Cole the “demon on her shoulder” and compare him to patriarchy. Continuing on, she zeros in on the “I Get Up” rapper saying, “But n*ggas in the back quiet as a church mouse, Basement studio when duty calls to get the verse out, I guess the ego hurt now.” Throughout the song, she also drops references to George Floyd and Oluwatoyin “Toyin” Salau [a BLM activist that disappeared for seven days and then was found dead with someone else in the back of a truck]. By the third verse, she recenters the audience’s attention back to the movement at hand.

As the flood gates opened – fans were expecting a storm to hit any day but by Father’s Day, it seems Noname had other plans. The rapper tweeted out an apology for the quick feud – “I’ve been thinking a lot about it and I am not proud of myself for responding with “Song 33”. I tried to use it as a moment to draw attention back to the issues I care about but I didn’t have to respond. My ego got the best of me. I apologize for any further distraction this caused.” In addition, she stated, “Madlib killed that beat and I see there’s a lot of people that resonate with the words so I’m leaving it up but I’ll be donating my portion of the song’s earnings to various mutual aid funds. black radical unity.”

J. Cole responded to Noname’s “Song 33” in a thread of Tweets – “Let me use this moment to say this…Follow @Noname. I love and honor her as a leader in these times. She has done and is doing the reading and the listening and the learning on the path that she truly believes is the correct one for our people. Meanwhile a n*gga like me just be rapping…We may not agree with each other but we gotta be gentle with each other. ✌🏿”

So that’s where we leave it – for now. You can find J. Cole’s full Twitter response Here. As of this morning, Cole’s last tweet from June 18 features Noname’s “Song 33”, while Noname’s Twitter is been set to private.

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