In the J. Cole rollout for The Fall Off album, it became apparent that Cole isn’t entertaining any slander just because he bowed out of the Kendrick-Drake beef. Some even thought he took shots at rapper Symba, who had taken shots at J. Cole upon his stepping back.
Cole rapped on Birthday Blizzard ‘26, seemingly addressing Symba’s shots saying, “Y’all toddlers to me, stop botherin’ me/Young Simba, some n****s threw some hate my way/But only thing they should say is, ‘Cole, you like a father to me.” Now, many feel Cole was just talking about his beginnings as the rapper known as Young Simba, but it wouldn’t be a reach to count that as a double entendre.
This is dope.. Had To Share❗️
Symba – Father Figure
My bad Sym🤷🏾♂️ pic.twitter.com/bbTy87JMs5— DJHed (@DJHed) February 5, 2026
Addressing the reply, Symba spoke to Jeremy Hecht and revealed that he said what he felt and that in the West, people joke a little aggressive. That’s what it was. He also mentioned that he may have overstepped his boundaries, but he respected Cole for clapping back. That said, he made sure to convey that he would have a reply of his own, which is now out on a Drake-Conductor beat.
The song is, expectedly, called Father Figure, and is a conceptual piece of rap that plays with expectation and subversion all at once. At the beginning, the listener feels as though Symba is talking about his real father and his many vices, the children he supposedly had on every street — only to realise Symba’s talking about hip hop being the father to all rappers.
He addresses the Cole-Kendrick-Drake dynamics with a few choice bars, and claims he didn’t understand “standing back” could mean “standing up” — discussing ego and integrity with nuance & empathy. At the same time, he wonders what the “preperation” (J. Cole’s claims of being the best and his classic career) were for, if he eventually backed out.
Interestingly, the raps are over Drake and Conductor’s ‘Stories About My Brother,’ and using the Drake instrumental may have undertones to Symba’s message too. What do you think?
