Growing up in Fayetteville, North Carolina during the nineties, naturally, Jermaine Cole, or J. Cole became a huge basketball fan. Most of the world knows him best as a rapper these days, but Cole actually played high school basketball and tried to walk on at St. John’s University back when he was coming up.
Many who have been fans of the hip hop icon for years now have heard many of Cole’s basketball-related themes displayed in his music. From his second mixtape titled The Warm Up to his Friday Night Lights mixtape, it’s clear, this dude has a passion for hoops.
In all, Cole has been nominated for 113 awards, winning 11. This includes a Grammy for Best Rap Song in 2020 for “A Lot”, Best Mixtape for Friday Night Lights, and a Billboard Music Award for winning Album of the Year for his 2014 Forest Hills Drive classic.
As he’s progressed through his musical career, Cole has been able to use his massive platform, which includes 29,398,914 monthly listeners on Spotify, ranking 78th in the world, the 37-year-old has been able to get more involved in various basketball opportunities. This includes performing at halftime of the 2019 NBA All-Star game.
Not only has Cole shared his musical talent with millions of his fans through his songs, he’s also played a little professional ball and is now looking to play a full year in Canada.
CEBL’s Scarborough Shooting Stars signs J. Cole to basketball contract
According to Shams Charania, J. Cole has agreed to a contract with a Canadian basketball team, the Scarborough Shooting Stars, and will participate in their training camp with the season opener coming on May 26.
It’s not the first time Cole has played professional ball. He also played three games with the Patriots Basketball Club in the Basketball Africa League last year.
Cole is listed at 6-foot-3, and we’ve seen him throw down some alley-oops before, who knows what could happen this time around.
There’s no telling how his second venture into pro basketball will go, but chances are it will last longer than three games this time around.
We’ll see if Cole’s other career can work out for him. If not, he can always runaway back to his rap career, applying pressure on some of the other legends of the industry.
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