J. Cole's Born Sinner album is doing consistently well on the charts, and he's looking to have the same success with his single "Crooked Smile." While it may not be a traditional single in terms of content for radio and pop standards, the rapper is nonetheless hoping it will get a lot of airplay at Pop radio stations. while talking to MissInfo, the rapper reveals that he thinks he has Macklemore to thank for letting "Crooked Smile" potentially become a pop radio hit.
The rapper explained how Macklemore opened up doors for him, as he says White men often have to do for Black men when it comes to radio stations.
"["Crooked Smile"] deserves to be the number one record in the country. I think Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop” gave me hope for a song like this. I think he kinda… as weird as it is, and it’s always happens like this, the White boys got to open the door for Black people at White radio. It happened with Elvis, Eminem, Justin Timberlake, Robin Thicke, and now hopefully Macklemore with a song like “Thrift Shop” can allow “Crooked Smile” to get its proper shine at Pop Radio," Cole said.
He went on, "Honestly, you can’t name me many songs better than… I don’t mean to sound crazy, but better than “Power Trip” as singles. They should have gave it a chance at Pop radio. All these Pop PDs weren’t giving rap a chance at all."
As Cole says, "Thrift Shop" is relate-able for fans all across the world, something he thinks "Crooked Smile" is also capable of, but "we needed Macklemore" first, he says.
The "Born Sinner" also reveals that he have to re-shoot the music video for "Crooked Smile." It will now feature Chilli and have a story to it. You can expect it to get released within the coming weeks.
"We have to re-shoot it," J. Cole said. "It came out nice but it just didn’t come out exactly how I wanted. It’s such an important song so I want the visual to match. If this was my first video than I would have panicked. We had to re-shoot “Work Out,” too."
One hot topic which Cole did not address, and appears to have no interest in so doing, is Kendrick Lamar's "Control" verse.
