As his colleagues Kendrick Lamar and Drake go after each other’s throats, J. Cole is just soaking up the sun.
In a video posted via TikTok on Tuesday, May, 7, the rapper, 39, was spotted by a fan sitting on the beach with his laptop and a pair of headphones plugged into the computer.
“Me: goes to the beach to clear my head,” the video was captioned. “Me: casually meets J. Cole.”
The fan posed for a photo with Cole, who gave a smile for the camera with his cell phone in hand.
In the comments section of her video, which has been viewed more than 1.7 million times, the TikTok user said Cole was at the beach “making his next album.” She did not provide any further details.
Cole’s sighting was particularly noteworthy due to the ongoing beef between Lamar, 36, and Drake, 37.
In April, Cole inserted himself into the multifaceted feud when he released his diss track “7 Minute Drill,” a response to Lamar’s verse on the Future and Metro Boomin track “Like That.”
On “Like That,” Lamar responded to an insinuation made by Cole on his 2023 song “First Person Shooter” — a collaboration with Drake — that Cole, Drake and Lamar made up rap’s “big three.”
“Motherf–k the big three / It’s just big me,” Lamar rapped on “Like That.”
In his response, Cole called Lamar’s last album “tragic” and said he “fell off like The Simpsons.”
However, shortly after Cole released his diss track, he bowed out of the beef, calling the song “the lamest s–t I ever did in my f–kin’ life.”
“I pray that God will line me back up on my purpose and on my path,” Cole said onstage April 7 at Dreamville Festival in Raleigh, North Carolina. Cole then removed “7 Minute Drill” from streaming services.
In the aftermath, fans speculated that Cole was living his best life watching Lamar and Drake continue their bitter battle. When that proved to be correct based on the TikTok video of Cole at the beach, onlookers had a field day.
“Everybody said jcole chilling in paradise and they wasnt wrong😭,” one person commented on the video. Another wrote, “Man’s really enjoying a peaceful life after leaving the beef.”
“I literally said to my friend yesterday ‘j.Cole probably sitting on the beach right now drinking a cocktail and watching the sun set,’” another comment read. “AND I WAS RIGHT.”