J. Cole Explains Delays

J. Cole's long-awaited debut album,Cole World: The Sideline Story, drops today (September 27), but the rapper still feels the need to explain himself to his fans. Cole told Power 98.3’s Yaya Martinez what caused his project to take so long. According to Cole, politics kept him from dropping the album.

“I always been ready to go. At all points. Even if I didn’t have a release date right now, if the album wasn’t coming out, I’d be ready. At all points during this process, I was ready,” he said. ”It’s just a matter of expectations. When you have the expectations of a whole label and how they look at you and perceive you and what they want your success level to be, then you’re going to have a lot of opinions on singles or whatever.”

“‘Can’t Get Enough’ is out of here. As soon as ‘Work Out’ finishes what it’s going to do on radio, which it looks like it’s going to go, ‘Can’t Get Enough’ is next," he continued. "I had ‘Can’t Get Enough’ last year, a year ago from now or whatever. But, it’s just how the cookie crumbles. I don’t have that type of power to put out the album. So my response to ‘Can’t Get Enough’ not being a single was Friday Night Lights, which had some songs that were originally going to be on the album.”