What was your reaction to the Nas cosign?
I don’t remain cool when I meet these people, I’m like a little kid. Actually, when I met Nas… this was before he gave me any props on video, probably like a month or two ago, he actually quoted one of my lines from the Kweli song. I was like ‘Man, don’t quote one of my lines. You don’t understand man.’ I was so genuinely appreciative. I fucking used to type Nas lyrics just to put up on my wall.

Going back to your album, you mentioned it being a lot of storytelling, what are some of those tales?
If you could imagine a town called Dreamville, which is really to me, a mixture of my hometown Fayetteville and the city of dreams, New York. So it’s like this fictional town where the story takes place and within this setting there’s all these different aspects of life. Whether it’s the main character’s issues, family issues, relationship issues and then there’s this whole other issue of him trying to accomplish his goals. Prison issues, family members locked up. I see it like a movie.

J. Cole speaks with Straight Spittas DVD about his debut album which is set to be released either the Spring or Summer of 2010!

The 24-year-old rapper, the first artist signed to Jay-Z’s fledging new label Roc Nation, now faces the task of making hit music under the wing of his boss, who brought to the world superstars Kanye West and Rihanna.

“I studied the game and I studied the greats and I studied people’s movements and the mistakes they made and the pitfalls. And he just did everything so close to perfect,” Cole said about Jay-Z, during an interview with ABC News. “If I wanted to do it like anybody or better than anybody, it would be him,” Cole said.

But just two years ago, he feared that chance would never come. In September 2007, after reading about Jay-Z’s upcoming album “American Gangster” on a rap Web site, Cole thought he could get his break by making beats for a record that would ultimately top the Billboard charts.