J. Cole talks about Kendrick Lamar surpassing him with 'good kid, m.A.A.d city'

Ever since J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar started to make a name for themselves, their fan bases made requests for them to work together. That probably had a lot to do with both rappers being top-tier lyricists and creating music that often leans toward conscious rap.

Then there was talk of a joint project they were going to release, but it never came out. Fortunately for fans, though, the Dreamville artist recently shared two of those songs on his audio series Inevitable and spoke about the studio sessions.

Cole said that Kendrick came to his hometown of Fayetteville, North Carolina when he was one of the opening acts on Drake's Club Paradise Tour in 2012. But something changed for Cole after those sessions, which had to do with Kendrick's now-classic debut album good kid, m.A.A.d city, because he felt the Compton rapper moved past him.

"We worked on that studio bus for two or three days," Cole recalled, per Billboard. "Before I had sent him joints, but this was the first time we actually got to lock in and work on s--t, and that s--t was so fun, dawg ... It felt like when your cousin would come over to your house."

“When Kendrick’s album dropped, the journey got harder, the mountain got steeper," he continued. "Because similar to when [So Far Gone] dropped, where it was like, 'Oh s--t, there’s another person out there that has the same ambitions as me,' it happened like that with Kendrick ... It was a feeling of surpassment."

Cole said he felt that way because good kid, m.A.A.d city sold more albums than his project. Plus, he was picked to perform before Kendrick when they did a show together.

Of course, things went south between the rappers earlier this year after Kendrick sent Cole and Drake a shot on Future and Metro Boomin's song "Like That." The North Carolina spitter then returned fire with his song "7 Minute Drill" but later apologized to Kendrick for releasing it.