Songfacts®:

• Jermaine is J. Cole’s first name. The song finds the rapper hitting on various topics ranging from police brutality and black-on-black violence, to not selling out to labels.
• The track is a collaboration with Atlanta rap duo EarthGang - comprised of Johnny Venus and Doctur Dot and another member of their Spillage Village crew, Hollywood JB. The track originated one January night in 2016, when EarthGang were working on a track produced by JB and J. Cole rolled through. "Cole was like, 'I can't resist this beat,' so he hit the weed for the first time in a long time," Doctur Dot told Genius. "He overthinks on weed but we were in the garage smoking a blunt, the beat was running in the background. We stacked the hook up, we all had verses on it, it was a posse record and was like, nine verses long."
  
  Earthgang heard the final shorter version a day or so before Major Key was officially released. It's the same Cole verse they recorded back in January, though some of his lines have been cut. Earthgang's verses were removed, but their voices can still be heard on the song's refrain.