A few months back, rumors were going around that J. Cole might be the Detroit Pistons newest potential player. Cole has previously voiced his love for the game of basketball but explained he gave up playing for St. John’s University to pursue a rap career. “When I really fell in love with rap, I started noticing the parallels between rapping and basketball…. I gotta operate at a high skill level and the only way to operate at a high skill level is putting in the hours… the practice,” Cole said in his documentary called Applying Pressure.
J. Cole is now continuing his successful rap career and has now also begun a new journey on the court as well. On May 14th, Cole dropped his new album “The Off-Season” and two days later he made his professional debut in the Basketball Africa League (BAL) with his team, the Rwanda Patriots Basketball Club. “When you put yourself in uncomfortable moments, you find out a lot about yourself and usually you find out that you’re capable and rising to that bar that’s set by that uncomfortable situation,” he said in “Applying Pressure”.
In his documentary “Applying Pressure”, Cole also reflected on why he didn’t make it in basketball saying “Do you really wanna look back 10, 20 years from now with this music stuff and be like the reason you didn’t make it in music is because you didn’t put in the work?” This thought inspired Cole to push himself and work hard to create his first mixtape “The Warm Up”. He applies this same mindset now as he’s entering this new opportunity with the Basketball Africa League.
J. Cole has definitely put more spotlight on the opportunities for rappers to transition to hooping if they work hard enough to do so. Do you think any other rappers like Drake will follow in his footsteps? Comment your thoughts down below!
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