Years before J. Cole burned the rap charts, he was a 6-year-old puffing on a cigarette.
The 38-year-old rapper “No Role Modelz”, whose real name is Jermaine Cole, spoke about his single mother, Kay, who was dissatisfied when she came upon about her addiction on Tuesday’s episode “Lead by Example with Bob Myers” podcast.
“By the age of 6, I used to be a regular smoker within the neighborhood,” Cole, who grew up in Fayetteville, North Carolina, told Myers, president and CEO of the Golden State Warriors.
“I used to be at all times hanging around with the older kids within the neighborhood [my older brother, Zach] they were spinning and burning. And I used to be young, fearless, and attempting to be cool.”
“So it was like, ‘Oh, you all smoke. Let me see it.’ And after all we’re all there [with] young parents, long leashes. It doesn’t [my mom] I knew I used to be doing it,” Cole continued.
He explained that 10-year-old children within the neighborhood thought it was “funny” that the teenager smoked – until his brother caught him asking for a cigarette and ran home to inform his mum.
![J. Cole performs during Lollapalooza at Grant Park on July 30, 2022 in Chicago.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008585196.jpg?w=1024)
“She said something like, ‘Say something,'” Cole recalled confronting his mom, a military veteran. “I used to be like, ‘What do you mean by saying something? and after I said it she leaned in, she smelled cigarette smoke on my breath.
“The rationale I feel it was a turning point in my life where I didn’t need much correction – I became self-correcting – is since it was the primary time I spotted, ‘Oh, my actions might hurt another person’ – he explained.
The Grammy Award winner also took skilled basketball overseas with the Rwanda Patriots within the Basketball Africa League in 2021.
He played guard for the Canadian Scarborough Shooting Stars team last 12 months; Cole previously played highschool basketball in North Carolina.
“I loved listening to music, pretending to be Bobby Brown or pretending to be Michael Jackson,” Cole stated when Myers asked if music or basketball were his “first loves.”
“I only remember the love of listening to music, and basketball got here years later because everyone within the neighborhood plays basketball, but after all – you are a kid – everyone thinks in regards to the NBA,” he said. “It was me.”