If You Run Into J. Cole On The Street… Ignore Him

Today, we’re going to give you some invaluable music career advice:

If you run into J. Cole in the street… IGNORE HIM.

This might seem somewhat counter-intuitive, but I’m going to explain the logic behind it.

Hopefully this music career advice will serve you to understand why just “waiting on your big break” will hurt you more than help you!

Alright, so a couple months back, there were reports of J. Cole himself being spotted riding through NYC on a bike running errands.

Truly a man of the people, it would seem Cole has no problem seeing how the other half lives and…

Sometimes you just gotta make things happen in New York.

Anyway, one of my coaching clients is from New York and one day around this time, he hopped in the chat and said…

“YO! I JUST saw J. Cole ride RIGHT past me on a BIKE! DAMMMMN… I should’ve stopped him and like, tried to rap for him.. I should’ve had my USB drive on deck! Fail!”

While most people’s reaction would be like, “Yeah man, damn you should be better prepared next time!”

“Always gotta have those rhymes ready”. Stuff like that.

Me on the other hand?

I’m like NAH.

If you see J. Cole on the street… IGNORE HIM.

Let’s give you 3 reasons NOT to do this kind of thirsty kind of “promotion” if we can even call it that…

J. Cole Music Career Advice on A Bike — Real Cole World Indeed

Every Decision J. Cole Makes Is Worth MILLIONS

In Hip-Hop, we are fond of saying things like “time is money”.

When people say this, they usually just mean “Don’t waste my time because I have important things to do that could make me money”.

While on the surface level, this is absolutely true for us mere mortals…

For a multimillionaire this is EXPONENTIALLY true.

Every single decision he makes not only affects himself… AGAIN as a human…

But the families, children, FUTURE children of every employee at the various entities and labels that he is associated with.

(This is some of the MOST crucial music career advice you’ll ever receive…)

So, if he is stopping for every single person with half of a demo who wants to rap for him or chat with him because they think it’s THEY’RE big time…

He could potentially be throwing away MILLIONS of dollars not only for himself…

BUT FOR OTHER PEOPLE’S FAMILIES.

In fact…

If he did this OFTEN enough… he would actually have to get DROPPED from the label…

(I know I would if I was the CEO!)

Just imagine the conversation the VP would have to have with the boss…

Boss: You DROPPED J. COLE?! WTF is wrong with you?
VP: Uh, yes sir… you see what happened was, he was riding on a bike to different meetings…
Boss: HE WAS RIDING ON A BIKE?!
VP: Yes sir, which didn’t seem like a big problem at first because, it kind of worked with his brand… Man of the people and all that… But eventually, people would recognize him on the bike and stop him…
Boss: WHY WOULD IT HE STOP?! We have million of dollars on the line with this guy…
VP: Yes sir, I understand… he would stop and listen to them rap and take their demo, and then when he got to the meeting he would say, “I’m sorry I’m late, someone stopped me to rap for them and I listened… and then another person stopped… my bad… Also, before we start, I have to listen to this demo someone handed to me… in fact, there’s like five of them…”
Boss: Oh my lord. Yes, I’m glad we dropped him. Not our problem anymore. What a fool!

You see, the logic behind this is first you have to PUT yourself in his shoes… REALLY think about the consequences of stopping for everybody who wants to chat with him… or him to listen to their music…

Because, frankly… YOU’RE not the only one thinking like this… You’re part of the “EVERYBODY”

J. Cole Music Career Advice Confused — J. Cole be like… “huh”?

Music Career Advice For “EVERYBODY”

The reasoning behind this could in a riddle of sorts:

To YOU… You’re YOU.

To J. Cole… you’re EVERYBODY.

In other words… to YOU, you’re unique, you’re original, you’re DIFFERENT than every other thirsty rapper with a demo…

To HIM… you are rapper #10,332 to do this SAME thing… JUST this year…

You’re EVERYBODY.

How Jonah Hill Accidentally Gave Me Music Career Advice

I actually learned this the hard way with an interaction with none other than the actor Jonah Hill…

Yes THAT Jonah Hill.

So, as you might know I live in LA.

A couple years back, I was at a free “art charity” event in Beverly Hills. I had been invited by a rich guy who had a rabid obsession with networking and at the time…

I was like his, “music guy” so he took me around the scene… and introduced me to some powerful people.

One of these events was a free art exhibition where it was reported Leonardo DiCaprio and a bunch of other big names were supposed to be there.

Random, I know, but funny enough LA has a lot of these free type things with celebs, most people just don’t know about it.

Anyway, I’m walking around and I never saw Leo, but Elton John walked past me, a few Hollywood producers, a bunch of other people who looked like they mattered in the 90s, that kind of thing…

I’m about to go refill my drink when I see none other than Jonah Hill standing talking to just one random dude in the corner.

Now, this is Jonah Hill.

J. Cole Music Career Advice Jonah — Jonah Hill was like “Don’t Make It Weird Bro”

SUPERBAD. MONEY BALL. KNOCKED UP. MF’ing WOLF OF WALL STREET Jonah Hill.

I had to meet him.

Even better, I had a random connection with him since my father was a professor at the college he went to.

So I approach all cool and collected and say,

Me: Excuse me, I don’t mean to be rude but I just wanted to say hello. My father worked at the university I think you attended. New School in New York?
Jonah: Oh wow, yeah! I went there. That’s cool. What’s your name? I’m Jonah.

At this point, I’m IN. I’m hanging with Jonah Hill. The dude to the right had nothing to say. We gon’ be homies one day.

Me: Yeah man, I’m Drew. Great to meet you!
Jonah: Dope to meet you. You enjoying the event?

At this point, all I have to do is chill, have a NORMAL conversation and be relaxed… and life is good. I’d start to loosen up in the party…

…Maybe have a fun drinks, crack some jokes, and then everything dope.

But ME… being ME… Thinking only about ME… Only about WHAT I WANT… My next response is:

“Yeah man, it’s great… you think I could get a picture with you?”

Dead silence.

AWKWARD.

Jonah MF’ing Hill looks at me like I just whispered, “We’ve got a bomb in the building. Don’t say anything, just try to look calm. Don’t move!”

He was mortified. I went from someone who GETS IT…

…To EVERYBODY ELSE.

Needless to say, he quickly ended the conversation and I scurried away into the night.

Me and Jonah Hill will never be friends.

J. Cole should never stop to hear your song.

YOU should focus more on building your career slowly and surely, so that one day THEY will reach out their hand to shake YOURS, not the other way around.

There’s nothing you will gain from trying to cut corners in this life.

J. Cole Music Career Advice Process — You are not above the process

You Are Not Above The Process

The main lesson here is that YOU ARE NOT ABOVE THE PROCESS.

The process in this case consists of two parts:

A. You are NOT above the process of slow, gradual promotion and releasing of great music to accomplish your dreams.

Trying to cut corners like stopping rappers in the middle of the street is training you to think everything in this industry is based on some big break.

Artists who think like that… even if they “cheat the system” usually fall apart because they have NO conception of what success actually looks like.

Success doesn’t look like stopping multimillionaires in the street and begging for a listen.

Success looks like years of hard grinding and patience until the day your idols want to stop YOU.

B. You are NOT above the process of treating people like HUMAN BEINGS

You are just like EVERYBODY else…

Meaning, that YOU are only special to YOU and to a few people close in your life.

To EVERYBODY else… INCLUDING your idols, you are just another person until you prove differently.

And just like I was not “special” to Jonah Hill, so he only was able to judge on my thirsty picture-taking VIBE…

YOU will only come off like a homeless hustler to the J. Cole’s of the world trying to stop million dollar deals.

You have a responsibility to LEARN about things like how time is leveraged for money when it comes to millionaires.

You have to STUDY how money and time work so that you can gain better PERSPECTIVE on how to deal with successful people.

You must respect the PROCESS it takes and not try to CHEAT THE SYSTEM by bothering J. Cole, Jonah Hill, or anybody else you MAY or MAY NOT someday work with…