Chika once looked up to J. Cole — he was and still is one of her “favorite rappers.” In 2018, her viral freestyle over Cole’s “1985” put her on the map. But on Tuesday night (June 17), shortly after Cole surprise dropped the new single “Snow On Da Bluff,” the Warner Music Group artist had a change of heart.
The disappointment was palpable as Chika outlined why she felt Cole had let her down. In a series of tweets, she explained his perceived response to Noname in the form of a song was inappropriate and blasted him for checking a Black woman’s tone.
She started by quoting a line from “Snow On Da Bluff.”
“‘help us get up to speed,’” she wrote. “sir. all you niggas got wifi … if a man was saying half the shit our good sis was saying, nobody would be concerned with her tone. imagine telling someone to treat the ignorant like children while critiquing their tone… like a child? what did this do for us as a community but display a ‘leader’ telling a black woman to mind her tone when speaking on radical liberation?”
Chika was also confused as to why Cole would even respond to Noname this way.
In one of his verses, Cole spits, “Instead of conveying you holier, come help get us up to speed/Shit, it’s a reason it took like two hundred years for our ancestors just to get freed” and “If I could make one more suggestion respectfully/I would say it’s more effective to treat people like children/Understandin’ the time and love and patience that’s needed to grow,” which didn’t appear to sit well with the Alabama native.
“the song could’ve said anything else at this critical and heavy time,” she continued. “It was just a nigga in his feelings… imagine being so deluded that instead of hearing her, you think you have the authority to make ‘suggestions,’ boy, i’m hot. it’s condescending as fuck & tone deaf. like… is that really the problem right now? this is one of my favorite rappers… doing this… FOR. WHAT?”
When a fan mentioned Cole had the time to sit down with Lil Pump for a dialogue about the “cultural divide” but not Noname, Chika replied with several “THANK YOUs” and “cuz this is when i stopped publicly stanning.”
However, Chika made it clear this wasn’t a campaign to “cancel” Cole.
“nobody said cancel him & to support that narrative directly silences the voices of black women who are also doing shit for the community,” she added. “critique and cancellation are not the same. if that was the case, wouldn’t we be saying he’s tryna cancel her? I’m disappointed in this.”
After a few hours of rest, Chika was back at it on Wednesday morning (June 18) and commented on Cole’s response to all of the backlash.
“‘educate me pls,’” she wrote. “black women: *write paragraphs about why what you said when you said it was wildly out of line.* ‘i stand by it.’ lmfao. bet.”