While "Crooked Smile" may be about embracing imperfection, J. Cole is not satisfied with anything less than the best for the single's music video. The Born Sinner rapper revealed to Miss Info that the video is being pushed back and re-shot.
"We have to re-shoot it," J. Cole said. "It came out nice but it just didn't come out exactly how I wanted. It's such an important song so I want the visual to match. If this was my first video than I would have panicked."
The Fayetteville-bred MC also revealed that this isn't the first time he's fussed over a video.
"We had to re-shoot "Work Out," too," he said.
Cole has high hopes for his TLC-backed track, namely pop radio aspirations. Cole believes that after the success of Macklemore's "Thrift Shop", Black rappers may find new doors open to them, in terms of airplay.
"['Crooked Smile'] deserves to be the number one record in the country," Cole said.
"I think Macklemore's "Thrift Shop" gave me hope for a song like this. I think he kinda... as weird as it is, and it's always happens like this, the White boys got to open the door for Black people at White radio. It happened with Elvis, Eminem, Justin Timberlake, Robin Thicke, and now hopefully Macklemore with a song like "Thrift Shop" can allow "Crooked Smile" to get its proper shine at Pop Radio."
Macklemore recently spoke on the same subject in an interview with Rolling Stone and, in a surprisingly honest moment, admitted that his whiteness was a major contributing factor to his success.
J. Cole believes that it's his turn in the pop radio spotlight and that his latest- which directly addresses race and record sales in its lyrics- will make a run at Top 40 stations.
"Honestly, you can't name me many songs better than... I don't mean to sound crazy, but better than "Power Trip" as singles. They should have gave it a chance at Pop radio. All these Pop PDs weren't giving rap a chance at all."
