J. Cole's recent appearance on Hart to Heart was a very enlightening interview about the iconic rapper's life. “I can’t really sit here like some mogul and give business advice ’cause I don’t think I run the best business,” Cole told Kevin Hart on Hart to Heart. “I’m grateful to have great people around me where it’s like, my money good. I’m smart with my money, and that just comes from fear. I don’t never, ever wanna be broke again so I’m slow to spend. I would definitely say [I’m] mindful because if it’s the right thing, if it’s a family vacation, I’ma spend. I’m not afraid to spend but I’m mindful — yeah, I think mindful is the word.”
It’s a mentality that Cole has held for much of his career. “I do wanna make a lot of money but that’s only for safety purposes. Like, I don’t have a lust of money and I actually don’t even have a love of money. I know these people, they’re my friends and they’re also rappers that I know, they love money, they’re addicted to getting money. And that’s cool, too — that’s what makes some of the most successful businessmen. I don’t love money like that. I love the comfort and the safety and the ability to retire my mom or if there’s a problem with my brother or my father has a problem, I like that feeling of being able to provide. So that’s the thing I do love about money,” Cole told The Wall Street Journal in 2013.
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However, the pair also spoke about who inspired Cole in the first place. "I got a whole list of people who are the reason why I'm here, my north stars that I look up to," Cole told Hart. "Obviously, Pac. Jay, Nas, Eminem, Andre 3000, Lil Wayne. And these are obviously the big bullets. But then you got like... I had Royce the 5'9 moments. I had Canibus moments. I had Boom Boom moments. But like, in terms of the people that fuelled my ambition? That showed me what was really possible? Those names I first named, those are the highest ones. So those were the people where I was like 'yo, I'm tryna get up there.' In terms of skill, in terms of success, all of that they fueled it.
A 100% humble dude, it's just the most recent example of Cole giving props where they are due. Elsewhere in the interview, Cole sung the praises of the newest golden generation of women in rap. “[They are making] some of the most exciting [music],” Cole told Hart. “I feel like they’re doing some of the most exciting [stuff], commercially — they’re giving us a lot of fire moments and I feel like that’s something that wasn’t around when we was growing up. You always had a Lil Kim, a Foxy [Brown], but there could never be more than one almost, it felt like. Now it’s like, bro, we’re getting moments and moments and moments. I think it’s hard.”
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