During a recent appearance on the Say Less podcast, J. Cole's manager, Ibrahim Hamad, spoke about the rapper's alleged run-in with Diddy, which Cole mentioned on “Let Go My Hand” off his new album, The Off-Season.
Ibrahim began, “The Puff story… I mean remember hearing it and just laughing ’cause I was there. I’m not gonna go into detail, but it’s definitely not what people are saying.”
As the 8-year-old story goes, some say that J. Cole was dancing too close next to Diddy's ex-girlfriend, Cassie. Others claim the rapper jumped in when Puffy tried to throw a drink at Kendrick Lamar after hearing Kendrick's “King of New York” line on Big Sean's track, “Control.”
Ibrahim continued, “It was definitely not like he was defending Kendrick or something. It wasn’t like, ‘Don’t talk to Kendrick like that!’ Kendrick was there, Top Dawg was there, Jay was there, Beyoncé was there. Me and Cole. You know, grown men… Got a little heated. All I remember is, me and Jay looking at each other like, ‘Oh, these n***as ’bout to fight.’ And then just being like, ‘Oh no, this is ’bout to happen.’ I’ll just leave it at that.”
Cole appeared to shoot down the rumor in August of 2013, tweeting at the time, “People will believe anything.”
Diddy also tweeted, “I usually don't address rumors but I got too much respect for my bro @JColeNC. We are friends The rumors are not true. We had a great party.”
On J. Cole's new record, he raps about the incident and says, “My last scrap was with Puff Daddy, who would’ve thought it? I bought that n***a album in seventh grade and played it so much/You would’ve thought my favorite rapper was Puff/Back then I ain’t know sh*t, now I know too much.”
