While Kendrick Lamar and Drake, two of ‘The Big Three’ rappers, were entangled in a war of words this summer, the third counterpart of the hip-hop greats, J. Cole, quickly waved the white flag and pulled out of the feud. However, an infamous scuffle of yesteryear surprisingly involving him took a haunting turn when he and disgraced mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs got embroiled in a pulse-pounding altercation over K. Dot.

Countless issues of the past with Diddy at the centre have been revisited and recounted ever since he fell from grace in the music industry after becoming the subject of numerous lawsuits accusing him of sexual assault, sex trafficking and whatnot. The American independent record label Top Dawg Entertainment’s President Punch, whose real name is Terrence Louis Henderson Jr, dug up the decade-old scuffle that broke out at an NYC MTV Video Music Awards after-party in 2013.

During his recent appearance on Tank and J. Valentine’s “R&B Money” podcast, Terrence “Punch” Henderson recollected the events of the hostile showdown. Without naming names initially, he alleged that Diddy threatened to slit J. Cole’s throat during the fight after the latter came to Kendrick Lamar’s defence.

As addressed by numerous media outlets over the years, Puffy reportedly took offence with the Pulitzer-winning musician’s thunderous flexing in his recently dropped “Control” verse at the time. Lamar had name-dropped dozens of his rap contemporaries, proverbially declaring to “murder” them and proclaiming himself the ‘King of New York.’

In a widely disputed counter, Diddy allegedly tried to pour a drink on Kendrick, which is when J. Cole intervened. Cole’s right-hand man Ibrahim Hamad on X, formerly Twitter, eventually contested several claims linked to that night. Punch, too, shot these allegations down.

Top Dawg Entertainment President Punch recalls a nightclub altercation, presumably the infamous Diddy-J. Cole fight

The TDE president recalled the old, widely questioned incident that blew up at the exclusive party, with multiple A-list stars in attendance.

“The homie just did this song, right? Pissed a gang of people off, everybody was mad at it,” Punch said, presumably addressing Lamar’s “Control.” “When the song came out, he was overseas, then he came to the States.”

“First place we stopped in was New York City and the first thing we do is say, ‘Let’s go to the club’ because we want to check the temperature, see what everybody was on – LA stuff.” The “Not Like Us” hitmaker was formerly affiliated with TDE.

Jumping to the scene at the club, Punch continued, “One of the homies approached us and [was] talking about this particular record. So we’re going back and forth: ‘Oh, it’s not personal. It’s just this, this and that. It’s cool, whatever, whatever.”

“Another one of the homies walk up, he looked drunk [and] said, ‘Yeah, y’all n-ggas need to go back and forth and keep it on wax or whatever,’” he added. Supposedly hinting at Diddy and J. Cole, Punch claimed that these two soon got into an argument of their own. “What we didn’t know is they had got into an argument before we got there.”

Explaining how things blew out of control, the TDE executive said he and his crew subsequently left for the VIP section. The little corner was crammed with unmissable celebrities, he described as “literally the front row of the Grammys.”

Diddy allegedly threatened to cut J Cole's throat

Again referring to Diddy and J Cole, Punch claimed that he soon saw them get back into a heated argument. “He was like, ‘If you ever say what you said to me earlier, n*gga, I’ll -.’ And he grabbed a bottle from the table, and he said, ‘What you gon’ do? Hit me on my head with a bottle?’” This time purportedly referring to Diddy’s actions, Punch went on: “He was like, ‘Nah, I’m gonna break it on the table and I’m gonna cut your throat.’”

The tiff instantly escalated into a big thing. He recounted that someone else also jumped into the action. “He grabbed the n*gga and pulled him close and seen who it was, and this dude was signed to his homie. But he couldn’t see, he didn’t have his glasses on. He felt so bad after the whole thing … He thought they was going at his mans.”

Punch's previous recollection of what is presumed to be the same incident

In a two-year-old conversation, Punch seemingly spoke of the same event. This time naming the people involved in the scuffle.

Punch detailed in his previous conversation on Math Hoffa’s “My Expert Opinion how Jay-Z and Combs were at one of their usual dinners. The latter subsequently jumped into a conversation about Lamar’s verse with Cole, and their back-and-forth developed into a brawl. “When we come in, Cole and Kendrick was talking about the verse, “ he went on.

“Then Puff came back over and their argument sparked up again. So from there, they ended up getting into the whole scuffle in the club.”

Although he chose not to name any of these celebrities in his latest interview, he presumably let the rumoured third man’s name slip in the old discussion as Jay-Z’s close friend Emory Jones.

“Emory thought somebody was jumping on Jay so he rushed over there and he got into the middle of the thing. He ended up grabbing Cole like, ‘Oh, it’s Cole!”

What J. Cole's manager said back in the day

Cole’s manager and longtime friend Ibrahim Hamad also dished some details about the club fight in 2021, countering allegations that the artist stood up for Lamar. “It was definitely not like he was defending Kendrick or something,” he said on the “Say Less” podcast.

“It wasn’t like, ‘Don’t talk to Kendrick like that!’ Kendrick was there, Top was there, [JAY-Z] was there, Beyoncé was there. Me and Cole. You know, grown men got a little heated. All I remember is, me and [JAY-Z] looking at each other like, ‘Oh, these n*ggas ‘bout to fight.’ And then just being like, ‘Oh no, this is about to happen.’ I’ll leave it at that.”

IB also rubbished the claims that the issue was blown out of the water, saying that Cole and Combs swiftly resolved the issue so that the disagreement wouldn’t drag on unnecessarily.

At the end of the day, neither of these narratives has been fully confirmed. Despite the similarities between Punch's description of the event and the infamous Diddy-J.Cole altercation, the incident leaves much to speculative thought, as neither party confirmed anything.

In 2021, J. Cole seemingly confirmed the Diddy beef rumours on his song, "l e t . g o . m y . h a n d." Without getting into details, he raps on the track: "My last scrap was with Puff Daddy, who would've thought it? I bought that n*gga album in seventh grade and played it so much."

Regardless of what actually went down in the fight – and what led to what – this track determined that he and Diddy had buried the hatchet. Cole enlisted the 'Bad Boy for Life's help to deliver the song's prayer outro. Media company Revolt, founded by Combs, also playfully joked about the rumours by releasing the video “J Cole and Diddy Fight Caught on Tape.” It hilariously shows the two as nothing but brother-in-arms messing around.

Elsewhere, in 2019, YouTube content creator Traplore Ross released the documentary“Why Diddy Slapped J. Cole,” which paints an alleged series of actions that led up to the brawl.

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