About

Drake: / Kendrick: / Meanwhile J. Cole:, also known as J. Cole During Drake vs. Kendrick Feud and J. Cole Living His Best Life, refers to a series of memes that imagine what rapper J. Cole, who initially took part in the Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar feud but exited from it early, has been up to while the two two exchanged beef and diss tracks. The memes imagine J. Cole being at peace with himself and living his best life while Drake and Kendrick Lamar diss each other in their songs.

Origin

Prior to early April 2024, rapper J. Cole participated in a rap feud between rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar on the side of Drake. On April 7th, 2024, soon after releasing the diss track "7 Minute Drill," which he later removed from streaming services, J. Cole apologized to Kendrick Lamar, saying that the song didn't feel good or right with his spirit and effectively stopped taking part in the feud.^[1]

When the feud escalated in late April 2024 with the releases of diss tracks both by Drake and Kendrick Lamar, users on X / Twitter started posting memes imagining J. Cole enjoying peace of mind while the two rappers feuded.

On May 1st, 2024, X^[2] user @jotmanjotman posted the earliest notable meme within the trend, a video caption that received over 640 reposts and 6,700 likes in eight days (shown below).

Spread

The format achieved viral popularity on May 4th, 2024, when multiple posts using the joke went viral. Caption memes combined accusations thrown at each other by Drake and Kendrick Lamar with videos imagining J. Cole living his best life in the meantime.

For example, on May 4th, tweleb @kirawontmiss made a post on Twitter / X^[3] that garnered over 32,000 reposts and 267,000 likes in five days (shown below).

On May 7th, 2024, TikTok^[4] user @kold.fr posted a TikTok video in which she randomly met J. Cole relaxing at a beach. The post spawned more memes within the format as it seemingly confirmed the assumptions made about the rapper (example^[5] shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References