Lil Durk waited for the perfect moment to make a joint track with North Carolina rapper J. Cole, and that’s why it took two years to finally come to fruition. The track titled “All My Life” is part of the rapper’s eighth studio album, Almost Healed, which was released last month.
Lil Durk spoke about his experience working with the coveted collaborator on the track during a sit-down interview with The Nadeska Show on Saturday (June 17). The Chicago rapper shared the two-year process of patience and timing and praised J. Cole, who he says “went super crazy” on the track.
He explained, “It’s so crazy because we’d been talking for like, two years, and he’d always be like, ‘Send me a record.’ And I’m like, ‘I gotta find the right record.’ I’m glad I waited two years. In my eyes he a legend. If you have a chance to do a song with a legend, it be like, will you send them something just to send it, just to say you got one, or you gone make it stick. So that’s why I never just sent him a record. Cause I’m like, ‘I want something that’s gon’ stick.’”
He added: “As soon as I did the record, he was the first person to pop in my head. Like, I got it. I believe in timing. Timing is everything.”
Lil Durk and J. Cole’s “All My Life” has received rave reviews since its May release. The track peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and went No. 1 on the US R&B/Hip-Hop and US Rap charts. Durk told the interviewer that with this album, he is seeing reactions he hasn’t seen in a while, new fans, and all-around positive feedback. One zealous fan even commemorated the project by getting a tattoo of the album cover.
In a previous interview, Lil Durk told Apple Music how he waited for the track that would be the perfect fit for J. Cole to make it worthwhile. “Whatever mood I’m in, I just go to the studio and just make the music,” he said. “I just feel like a positive vibe went up with Dr. Luke, you know what I’m saying? That’s the first song he played and I just felt it and I’m like, ‘Man, I want J. Cole on this.’”
He continued, “And I made it happen. I’ve been talking to him, checking up on him, just seeing how you doing. You wait for the right moment for him to ask to be on the song. The song be big.”
J. Cole’s longtime manager Ibrahim ‘Ib’ Hamad, was recently forced to confront rumors that Lil Durk paid for the feature. On Twitter, he replied to a post that claimed the rapper had to fork over $978,000 for the collaboration with the cap emoji. Similarly, Durk’s DJ also took to Twitter to say, “False news we ain’t never paid for a feature… Ever!”
Granted, the RapHouseTV claim was merely based on Cole’s lyrics from the Young Thug track “The London,” where he raps: “A verse from me is like eleven birds/ I did the math it’s like $2,000 every word.”
“All My Life” marks Lil Durk’s third Billboard top-10 hit and his second ever No. 2 on the chart. The J. Cole-assisted track is the only non-Drake track to make the cut.
