Why J. Cole Was Wrong & Why Noname Shouldn't Apologize

To start, I love hip-hop. I've studied the genre for years and, obviously, as a woman, misogyny comes with the territory. We all have listened and sung along to our fair share of blatantly sexist songs. We, Black women, have also been the subject of misogynoir, colorism, and blatant anti-Blackness, namely internalized anti-Blackness from Black male rappers. At this point, it is normal. These verbalized prejudices are so expected that when an artist simply isn't taking back-to-back shots at Black women, or dark-skinned Black women in their lyrics, some of us tend to put them on a pedestal.

Enter J. Cole, the college-educated, 35-year-old, biracial rapper who spews conscious-adjacent lyrics, save for maybe a few verses and songs like "Work Out." A song I enjoyed no matter what Nas said (sidenote: "Nas Is a Misogynist" essay pending). J. Cole fans often refute criticisms by suggesting that anyone who doesn't like J. Cole simply doesn't understand his highly intellectual lyrics (see Wet Dreamz, 2014). Many of his fans have been attempting to pull the "his lyrics are going over your head" card, ever since rap lovers took to Twitter to, rightfully, chastise and make fun of J. Cole for the lyrics of his most recent song, Snow on tha Bluff - released late on June 16th.

Before we get into a full-out bar-by-bar breakdown of the song, we need a quick recap. Rap listeners easily drew a connection between the subject of J. Cole's song to the rapper Noname, who had recently tweeted and deleted a tweet about rappers who discuss "Black plight" in their lyrics but have been noticeably quiet on social media since the brutal deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and now many more Black people in the U.S. I've comprised a list of just some of the most basic reasons J. Cole was wrong:

1. The "mad Black woman" trope insinuated within the first few lines.

2. Mentioning Noname's "tone" bothering him. First off, this is not something a grown man would say to another grown man. Sexism and patronizing aside, he's referencing a tweet that never said his name, as if he hasn't insulted other rappers in music before (see False Prophets). The line insinuates that he thinks she owes him some sort of respect, which she doesn't.

3. Suggesting that it was a difference in upbringing as to why he knows nothing and Noname seems "smarter than [him]." This is an insult to her journey towards learning and unlearning. It's an insult toward the work she's done for herself by listening to people who know more than her and taking it upon herself to do research, rather than to ignore, what any other celebrity may have called, "bullies".

4. He says, "When I see something that's valid I listen" but we made fun of him ALL night for how wrong he was and he still went on Twitter the next morning and said he stands behind everything he said in his song.

5. J. Cole is attacking Noname because he thinks that she thinks that she's "better than [him]." Noname hasn't yet come off as someone who thinks she's better than others and she has been vocal about her journey.

6. It is completely unfair to ask someone to help you on a journey to enlightenment when you're not even prepared to help yourself. People want information spoon-fed to them, rather than having to do the work and read the texts. Black women, especially, have been making statements about this for a long time, and yet J. Cole still manages to fault Noname for not seeking out people like him, who are not yet ready or willing to learn or to be uncomfortable with themselves. Women are constantly asked to carry the mental load for men.

7. Noname has an entire book club where they read a different revolutionary text every month. J. Cole could join.

8. J. Cole says "people are sheep" but he has a much bigger platform than Noname, yet he still puts the blame on her for knowing her stuff. He shifts way too much of the blame away from himself, even though he is labeled a "conscious rapper," but admittedly doesn't read the texts or do the work. If he believes people are sheep, shouldn't he be the one positioning himself in a more leading role? Shouldn't he be asking Noname or, better yet, real organizers how he can learn and help and use his platform with purpose, instead of insulting Noname's Twitter usage?

The bottom line is that J. Cole has some issues with himself and he took it out on Noname, a Black woman, because his ego was bruised. She's his scapegoat. Her original tweet was accurate and he didn't like how it made him feel. Instead of writing another song about everything going on in the world, or about all of the Black people being affected by police brutality, or about Toyin Salau, or Breonna Taylor, he used his voice and platform to target another Black woman, who has been doing nothing but trying to liberate her own mind and use her social media platform to inform others about the things she has learned. He might not have been able to push the movement further, but he could have used his skill to push the conversation further, at least. Instead, he chose to attack a young Black woman.

That is exactly why Noname doesn't owe anyone an apology for releasing Song 33, though she did take it upon herself to apologize anyway. Yes, she wrote, recorded, and released a responding diss track, but to suggest that her response further derailed the conversation regarding the liberation of Black people in the U.S. isn't fair - not in this instance. Noname is a rapper, but not only that, she is a Black woman in america, a dark-skinned Black woman in america, at that. She may be a celebrity, but we all know that the world is more unfair to certain types of people, and Black women, especially dark-skinned Black women, lie at the bottom of the social totem pole. She was speaking for Black women, but also for herself because she sees herself represented in the growing statistic of women who are taken advantage of, brutalized, and even murdered.

Noname's Song 33 could not have derailed the conversation because she is the conversation. We are the conversation. To suggest that she ought to just grin and bear it after a man attacks her is beyond unfair. She wrote a song and she said what needed to be said. Not to mention, J. Cole needed to be told about himself. Women should not have to always be the bigger person or turn the other cheek. We learned generations ago that if we do not speak up for ourselves as Black women, nobody will - not even the Black men we fight for.

R.I.P Oluwatoyin "Toyin" Salau. You deserved so much better.