“I guess the neighbors think I’m sellin’ dope, sellin’ dope,” goes the opening line of “Neighbors” off J. Cole’s latest “platinum with no features” effort, 4 Your Eyez Only. The song was inspired by an incident that occurred in March of last year, when residents around Cole’s The Sheltuh studio in North Carolina began suspecting the rapper and his crew were using the location to grow weed. They called the cops, which led to a massive investigation ending in a SWAT team raiding the studio. Of course, no growing operation was found, and Cole wasn’t even there — he was in Austin, Texas for South by Southwest.
If you ever doubted the story behind the song was true, check out the video above. It features security cam footage of the actual raid on The Sheltuh, which originally aired during the 4 Your Eyez Only: A Dreamville Film documentary special on HBO back in April. Now, it’s been placed underneath “Neighbors” as a mini-music video of sorts, coming in at just under a minute-twenty. In the clip, you can see a 13-person SWAT team busting into the studio, kicking down a back door and knocking out the security cameras. The best part, however, has to be the larger SWAT dude who so clearly wants to be the one using the battering ram that he thrusts his hips along with each hit. Take a look above.
J. Cole’s manager and Dreamville Records president Ibrahim “Ib” Hamad confirmed on Twitter that the footage is indeed real.
