Back in January, Atlanta duo EarthGang were hanging out at a friend’s crib with the rest of their Spillage Village crew—J.I.D., Hollywood JB, etc.—when J. Cole rolled through. They were working on a track produced by JB that would eventually become “Jermaine’s Interlude” on DJ Khaled’s chart-topping Major Key album.

EarthGang—comprised of Johnny Venus and Doctur Dot—toured with Ab-Soul and Dreamville artist Bas in 2014, which is when they first met Cole in person. They kept in touch ever since, which led up to that one fateful night in winter 2016.

“We were just trying to get Bas to fuck with the song, but Cole was like, ‘I can’t resist this beat,’ so he hit the weed for the first time in a long time,” Earthgang’s Doctur Dot tells Genius. “He overthinks on weed but we were in the garage smoking a blunt, the beat was running in the background. We stacked the hook up, we all had verses on it, it was a posse record and was like, nine verses long.”

A few weeks later, they were out in New York after performing at Bas' last tour stop in mid-July and found out the song would appear on DJ Khaled’s new album. Earthgang’s verses were removed from “Jermaine’s Interlude,” but their voices can still be heard on the song’s refrain where they sing about financial woes and an optimistic outlook on their futures.

“We were out, and in a drunk conversation, [J. Cole’s manager] Ibrahim was like, ‘Yeah Cole’s gonna use that record’ then someone in the Uber kept saying ‘MAJOR KEY,’” Dot tells Genius. They heard the final version a day or so before Major Key was officially released and it’s the same—albeit shorter—Cole verse they recorded back in January.

As for the original nine minute posse cut? EarthGang says they might release it eventually, but for now, they’re working on new music for the rest of the summer.

You can read more of their verified annotations and all of the lyrics to “Jermaine’s Interlude” on Genius now.