There was a very subtle, but perhaps telling, allusion to J. Cole during Kendrick Lamar’s historic Pop Out event that went almost entirely missed.

Last week, Kendrick performed his 2015 smash song “Alright” at the Kia Forum in Inglewood. However, some keen observers have only recently discovered that the background track he utilized was Cole’s remix, since the Dreamville rapper’s ad-lib was audible during the entrance.

It’s possible that this was an olive branch to Cole after the North Carolina native dissed Kendrick on “7 Minute Drill” in response to his scorching verse on Future and Metro Boomin‘s “Like That.”

Cole U-turned just days later, of course, apologizing to Kendrick during his headlining performance at his Dreamville Festival and later removing “7 Minute Drill” from streaming services.

Kendrick Lamar rapped over J. Cole’s version of ‘Alright’ at the Pop Out Show 👀🔥

You can hear Cole’s (Yeah) adlib at 0:05pic.twitter.com/maw3rwBI3x

— NFR Podcast (@nfr_podcast) June 27, 2024

Before their brief battle, the two had been longtime friends and occasional collaborators, with Cole’s “Alright” remix arriving at the same time that Kendrick jumped on his 2014 Forest Hills Drive track “A Tale of Two Citiez.”

Cole also produced Kendrick’s 2011 song “HiiiPoWeR,” while rumors persisted for years that the pair would team up for a joint album.

Cole has previously discussed how close the dream project was to becoming a reality.

“In a nutshell, [Kendrick Lamar] had pulled up on me at No ID’s spot after we was already building this relationship, and I had these beats at the time and I was playing them for him,” he said on Lil Yachty‘s A Safe Place podcast last year.

“Was that our first time linking? ‘HiiiPoWeR,’ one of them beats? There’s a few beats, a gang of beats that I did, I gave him. Some of them like, maybe had a hook on them, a verse — this, that, and the third.

“So he took them and, you know, in that moment, we talked about, ‘Yo, bro, we should do a project.’ At that time he’s not on like that, but I’m fuckin’ with him.”

Cole revealed that timing was a big factor in the album not coming to fruition: “At one point, it was a real thing. But bro, time and life, we ain’t ever got the chance to go in and do it correctly, because that would take time.

“For us to do something that’s full of our potential, that meets our real potential, you’re gonna need time. At least a year. When you got two successful artists with lives and families, that’s hard to do.

He added: “We put it to bed years ago. But at one point in time, it was a real conversation, for sure […] It’s not like it’s a ton of songs. It’s not like it’s some album sitting on the shelf somewhere.”