Well that's not much true at all. In the beginning, and a lot of people, even as far back as in the SOHH days, were clowning at the fact of how much non-involvement Jay-Z had with J. Cole. Whenever J. Cole spoke about Jay-Z, he mainly stated about the mentorship and not necessarily overseeing the album itself. J. Cole always maintained that Roc Nation allowed him to do whatever he wanted and his problems were with Columbia, the label that he was really signed under. And it was Columbia that kept pushing his 1st album back, and demanding a profitable single and so forth. And it was in part why he never resigned with Columbia and created his own record label with Interscope distributing. Dreamville Records has zero relationship with Roc Nation. All of the artists under Dreamville, Bas, Cozz, Earthgang, J.I.D, and Ari Lennox has nothing associated with Roc Nation whatsoever. The only exception is J. Cole. But J. Cole IS his own artist of Dreamville, that's why on the back of the album covers of both 4YEO and KOD is why you see Dreamville, Roc Nation and Interscope.
His current situation is the exact same as Kendrick with the ONLY exception is that he actually runs his label while Kendrick does not run TDE. But just like Kendrick is part of TDE, Aftermath, and Interscope. Same with J. Cole with Dreamville, Roc Nation, and Interscope. Roc Nation serves as the middle man handling mostly the big touring events, the promo, the connects with advertisers and so forth. They have nothing to do with control how and when J. Cole releases an album, singles or outside projects such as the HBO documentary that he does.
Is Cole still 'too deep' for us?
