The Inspiration Behind the Cover Art of J. Cole’s Mixtape: ‘The Warm Up’
J. Cole’s story behind his mixtape’s iconic cover art is finally revealed.
It has been a decade since J Cole’s mixtape, The Warm Up, was released. Although the rapper had mixtapes before this one, The Warm Up was the mixtape that gave J. Cole his big break. His manager, Ibrahim “IB” Hamad, has been celebrating and reminiscing his talent’s successful mixtape on social media. He said in a tweet last week, “[It’s] crazy to see where he is now and I feel blessed that I get to be a part of that.”
10 years ago @JColeNC dropped The Warm Up. Crazy to see where he is now and I feel blessed that I get to be apart of that. 10 years ain’t a given in this game especially at Cole level but special people do special shit. Here’s to 10 more for my brother (if he even wants 10 more) pic.twitter.com/e5rfn5eicJ
— Ibrahim H. (@KingOfQueenz) June 15, 2019
Along with Hamad celebrating J. Cole’s mixtape, he also dropped some insider knowledge on The Warm Up. Apparently, the iconic image of the rapper standing in the snow holding a basketball was not made in front of a green screen or photoshopped. J. Cole and Hamad were really outside in the snow on a basketball court. According to Hamad, the shoot for the cover art was supposed to be inside a warm gym but the coach of the school never showed up to let them in. So the two were stuck outside with no other option but to take pictures outside.
Since we talking The Warm Up, this cover was legendary. We were suppose to shoot in my HS gym and it was snowing mad hard so my coach ain’t even show up to open the gym for us, Coach Lloyd left us out there in the snow 😂. So we shot that shit right outside of Holy Cross HS pic.twitter.com/sUxTXsZn4v
— Ibrahim H. (@KingOfQueenz) June 15, 2019
J. Cole’s manager joking says in other tweets many fans have believed the rapper was surrounded by fake snow for aesthetics. Hamad said J Cole could have “caught pneumonia and… almost died out there just for people to think it was fake snow for 10 years”. To give even more proof of the rapper’s battle with the cold for some dope pictures, check out some more never seen before shots Hamad posted as proof.
1.10.2009 photo shoot for “The Warm Up”. In case y’all really thought it was photoshopped lol shout out to Chad Griffith who was the photographer for sending me these pics and @AlexHaldi for doing the cover #10YearAnniversary pic.twitter.com/yjLSmbrCI7
— Ibrahim H. (@KingOfQueenz) June 15, 2019
