When J. Cole moved back to his native North Carolina, the Fayetteville rapper’s home (titled “The Sheltuh”) was hit with a raid, according to the video for his latest 4 Your Eyez Only cut “Neighbors.”
“I guess the neighbors think I’m sellin’ dope,” Cole recites on the hook before going into deeper detail throughout the track. “F–k the fame and the fortune, well, maybe not the fortune / But one thing is for sure though, the fame is exhaustin’ / That’s why I moved away, I needed privacy / Surrounded by the trees and Ivy League,” he raps.
Verse three finds the St. John’s alum recalling the raid, “I can’t sleep ’cause I’m paranoid/Black in a white man territory / Cops bust in with the army guns / No evidence of the harm we done / Just a couple neighbors that assume we slang / Only time they see us we be on the news in chains, damn.” He also sings on the outro, “So much for integration / Don’t know what I was thinkin’ / I’m movin’ back to Southside.”
The song’s producer, Elite, told Complex in a previous interview that a SWAT team had busted down the door while no one was home. “One of the neighbors told the police we were growing weed or selling drugs out of this house,” And there was a huge investigation, like a million-dollar investigation. They flew helicopters over, sent an entire SWAT team armed with weapons, broke down the door and searched the whole house. Thankfully nobody was in the house.”
Clips of the video were spliced into his second HBO documentary 4 Your Eyez Only, which aired on April 15. Upon its release last December, the now-platinum album debuted at the top of the Billboard 200.
Watch the super-short video for “Neighbors” below.