False Prophets (song)
2021 single by J. Cole
"False Prophets" is a single by American rapper J. Cole, released on December 5, 2016 along with his single "Everybody Dies". The two songs were previewed in the documentary Eyez.
Background
Originally, "False Prophets" was included on Cole's fourth studio album 4 Your Eyez Only. According to J. Cole's manager and producer Ibrahim "Ib" Hamad, the song did not "fit the storyline" of the album and was not a "real representation" of it. In 2018, Cole revealed that "False Prophets" was supposed to appear on his upcoming sixth studio album, The Fall Off, which was scheduled for release in 2020.
The instrumental of "False Prophets" was previously used by Joey Badass on his song "Waves". According to Badass, he gave J. Cole "his blessing" after Cole reached out and played the song for him. The instrumental was later used again by Mad Squablz for his song "Find My Way".
Controversy
After the release of the 4 Your Eyez Only documentary, which played a snippet of "False Prophets", the disses in the song were quickly noticed. Though J. Cole did not mention any names on the track, there was guessing that the first verse contained direct shots towards Kanye West, because of lyrics about one altering public perception by the media and fans; as well as his recent hospitalization.
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This entry incorporates text from “False Prophets (song)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.