LOS ANGELES — J. Cole was so excited about his sophomore album, Born Sinner, that he moved the LP’s release up a week to meet Kanye West’s Yeezus at retail on June 18. The move earned Cole the #2 LP last week and continues to pay off as he’s expected to move another 95,000 in his second week — not bad.
“That’s the people speaking. I’m happy, I’m grateful, dawg; I’m blessed. The second-week numbers are fantastic too,” Cole told MTV News when we spoke to him on the 2013 BET Awards red carpet on Sunday (June 30).
Not long after our interview, Cole took the stage at the Nokia Theatre to perform “Crooked Smile” before going into “Power Trip” with Miguel. It’s been a remarkable two weeks for Cole who not only dropped his album, but released a big-time remix of his Born Sinner track “Let Nas Down.”
The original version of the song finds Cole rapping about his feelings after he found out the Queens, New York, rap veteran was less than excited about his 2011 radio hit “Workout.” “Damn, my heart sunk to my stomach/ I can’t believe I let Nas down,” the North Carolina MC raps on the original song.
But just a few days after Cole’s album hit retail, Nas added his two cents and a celebratory verse to the track as he rechristened it
“It was amazing. I knew it was going to come before it came, I had heard the verse,” Cole told us about the remix. “It was ill to see that the hip-hop community and the music world saw how big it was too. I had people telling me, ‘Yo, I was crying when I heard it,’ because they knew — they got it. They got the story.”
The 2013 BET Awards are underway live from Los Angeles! MTV News has got you covered on the red carpet, plus all of the show highlights, winners and more!
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