J. Cole reveals he began smoking at an incredibly younger age

Years earlier than J. Cole was smoking up the rap charts, he was a 6-year-old taking drags on a cigarette.

The 38-year-old “No Role Modelz” rapper, whose actual identify is Jermaine Cole, spoke about his single mom, Kay, being disenchanted to find out about his behavior throughout Tuesday’s episode of the “Lead by Example With Bob Myers” podcast.

“At 6 years old, I was smoking cigarettes regularly around the neighborhood,” Cole, who grew up in Fayetteville, North Carolina, informed Myers, the president and basic supervisor of the Golden State Warriors.

“I was always hanging around the older kids in the neighborhood that [my older brother, Zach] was hanging around and they were smoking. And I was young and fearless and trying to be cool.”

“So, it was like, ‘Oh, y’all smoking. Let me see that.’ And, of course, we’re all out there [with] young parents, long leashes. Not that [my mom] knew I was doing this,” Cole continued.

He defined that the 10-year-old neighbor youngsters thought it was “funny” that the teenager smoked — till his brother caught him asking for a cig and ran dwelling to inform their mother.

“She was like, ‘Say something,’” Cole recalled of the confrontation with his mom, an Army veteran. “I was like, ‘What do you mean, say something?’ and after I mentioned it she bent down, she smelled the cigarette smoke on my breath.

“The reason why I think that was a life-changing moment where after that I didn’t need much correction — I became a self-corrector — is because that was the first time I became aware that, ‘Oh, my actions can hurt someone else,’” he defined.

The Grammy winner additionally took up professional basketball abroad with the Rwanda Patriots within the Basketball Africa League in 2021.

Final 12 months, he performed guard for Canada’s Scarborough Capturing Stars; Cole beforehand performed highschool basketball in North Carolina.

“I loved listening to music, pretending that I’m Bobby Brown or pretending that I’m Michael Jackson,” Cole claimed when Myers requested whether or not music or basketball was his “first love.”

“I just remember the love of listening to music then basketball came years later because everybody around the neighborhood is playing basketball, but of course — you’re a kid —everybody’s going to the NBA in their mind,” he mentioned. “That was me.”