J. Cole

I want people to follow their dreams, yes... but I'm not interested in telling young black kids how to be rappers... I want to show them that there's so many other paths you can take, besides a rapper or basketball player.

There was the time I bought three cars in the span of three or four weeks. It was crazy; it wasn't greedy. It was mine, my girl's, my mom's. I got Benzes for my ladies. But I felt crazy. You have to understand I come from a world where we're very modest. But that's not greedy. That's nice, right?

I was just a goofy little funny kid, who was always getting sent to the principal. It wasn't serious because I was smart. I wasn't like a true troublemaker, just rambunctious - like, talkative and trying to be funny. That was me in middle-school.

In the film industry, we tend to pick up where others have left off, and I'd like to think the influences I picked up from Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Sylvester Stallone and Jean-Claude Van Damme are visible in my work.