J. Cole Says Drake Initiated 'In The Morning' With Text

Celebrity Favorites: J. Cole

The old adage is that great minds think alike, and regarding the J. Cole and Drake collabo "In the Morning," the saying couldn't be more true.

The two young MCs finally linked up on the track from Cole's recently released mixtape, Friday Night Lights. It happened as a result of a budding friendship between the two, despite blog fodder that the rhyme slingers don't get along.

"I got a text from Drake," Cole told Mixtape Daily. "Now, I kind of just let people say what they say on the Internet or when they have discussions, but the real truth is me and Drake are cool, and have been cool and have been building a relationship. But he hit me when I was in Paris [on a tour], like, 'Yo, I just heard this "In the Morning." ' He had just heard it for the first time. He said it was so good that he told me some wild story, you know those exaggerated stories, like 'I need better beats,' just one of those type of things, giving me props."

Cole originally recorded "In the Morning" in 2007 in his bedroom, featuring three of his own verses. The track almost made one of the North Carolina rapper's previous mixtape efforts, but he held onto it before it eventually leaked to the Web.

When Drake sent him a message, however, he told the Toronto lyricist he had actually been thinking about reworking "In the Morning." Cole said Drake responded: "Save me 16."

When Cole hit Stateside, he reached out to the song's producers, L&X Music, and requested the file. He said he tweaked it with a breakdown and some other additions to "take it to the next level."

Drake sent Cole his verse earlier this month, Cole released the record Thursday, and was aflutter over the Roc Nation signee and the Young Money solider finally doing a song together.

"The rumors of tension [between us] were so high, I thought it was cool to break the ice with that type of record," Cole said of the slow burner.

"And like [Drake] said, it's the perfect song for us to get on first," he added. "Because everyone is expecting 'Brooklyn's Finest,' and I don't know if it's like that. [Drake] said it himself: We got a long time to do those records."

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