Kendrick Lamar was in NYC talking about his new partnership with Reebok, but we had to sneak in some questions about music. K. Dot was excited about the success of his boy J. Cole’s new album, and revealed that their long-awaited collaborative project is closer to becoming a reality.

Cole’s new album, 2014 Forest Hills Drive, is reportedly on pace to sell over 300K units its first week according to Hits Daily Double. Not too shabby for an LP the seemingly popped up out of nowhere. Kendrick was excited for his rhyme peer and what that sort of grassroots success means for the rap game.

“That’s my brother, man,” Kendrick told Hip-Hop Wired. “To see that he did exactly what he said what he was going to do—and me believing in what he was going to do—is just confirmation that good people will always be blessed. When you look at the game today, it’s so contemporary.”

Contemporary? Peep the science. “These corporations and these labels they’ll grab these kids that have raw talent and take their one song, they don’t care about developing them,” he said. “Matter of fact, they don’t give a f*ck about their raw talent, they just taking their song that has buzz, putting it out on the net and putting a price on it. Then once the single dies down, they push these kids to the left that just made them millions of dollars.”

Lamar mentioned artists like Drake, Wale and of course his TDE crew as acts that sidestepping flaming out by growing their fanbases before major labels stepped in. “By Cole doing what he’s doing, it puts the artist development back in the business, where the music speaks for itself,” says Kendrick. “It’s overwhelming man, and I love it. I respect that dude not only as an artist but as a person. He’s a great person, he deserves everything he’s getting.”

As for he and Cole’s collaborative album, the pair set the Internets on fire when they posted pics of themselves working on music together, back in 2012. When asked when we could expect a collaborative project, he revealed his own new album is just about done.

“This is probably the situation where we obviously have albums coming out at the same time so that ideal project may be a little bit more realistic, now that we both out of the way with the albums,” revealed Kendrick. “I’m in the process of finishing up and his album is crazy so we have that space and time to actually do what we do.”

Sooner than later, please.

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Photo: Reebok