Common's classic track "I Used To Love H.E.R.," which personifies hip-hop as a romantic partner, has clearly inspired every generation that followed it, and J. Cole recently paid tribute to it with his new song "I Love Her Again." It appears on his highly anticipated new album (and presumably his last), The Fall-Off. On the cut, the North Carolina MC uses that same song concept to reflect on how the genre, culture, and community treated him following his exit from the Kendrick Lamar and Drake battle, as he apologized for dissing Kendrick on "7 Minute Drill."
We don't need to run over the whole story again, but this track contains the most direct and fresh perspective on Cole's decision. This follows multiple tracks and statements in which he already made his feelings clear. In the first verse, the Dreamville rapper recalls falling in love with the genre and it moving its base from New York to Atlanta. On the third and last, he admits that he let her slip away and reflects on the genre not having a sense of belonging or ownership to a single person.
J. Cole's "I Love Her Again"
But in the second verse, J. Cole ends it by bringing up what many folks see as this "ownership" situation: being the best and dominating the game. "She said, 'I got to tell you, I done rocked a lot of fellas / But with you there's something special, I think you could be the one' / Now when it comes to love, jealousy will often creep / That type of games is why two of my homies start to beef / To both of them she said, 'You're the best I ever had' / And the whole time that b***h was saying that type of s**t to me," he raps on the cut.
That "Best I Ever Had" reference firmly roots this in that beef dynamic, positing that Kendrick Lamar and Drake emerged as hip-hop's victors and that the culture agreed. But with J. Cole's other reflections on the matter in mind, this experience has clearly changed his perspective on the genre and his relationship to it. "I Love Her Again" may be the final step in that acceptance, whether or not fans will be sympathetic to his point of view.
