J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar take their MCing very seriously. The two friends have long-planned to drop a collaboration project, and while the release date is up in the air, Cole assures that both rappers will on their lyrical A-games.

"It's mad competitive. It has to be, because we both love it. We're not gonna speak about it, it's not gonna be like, 'Yo man I killed you,' " the Roc Nation rapper/producer told MTV News during an interview last month during the 2013 NBA All-Star weekend.

"It's pride. You have pride in your craft and what you do, but to a certain extent," Cole explained of the friendly competition that exists between most MCs.

Sometimes though, it isn't about who has the best bars, but making the best possible songs and in those instances both K-Dot and Cole work toward a unified goal. "It's not about who's better verse, it's about the song," he said. "But if it's just for flexin', you definitely wanna show out."

The tag-team project has been teased [article id="1657410"]since 2011[/article], but Cole also assures us that it will happen. "It's coming. We already got too many songs. Even if you just get an EP, you gonna get something, but we got sh-- that we holding in the stash," he said.

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Cole convinced us with his confidence, but he did say that he now realizes why the business makes it difficult for two artists, from different labels to collaborate on a single project. Artists like Nas and AZ, MF Doom and Ghostface Killah, and Fabolous and Ne-Yo have all been conceptualized, but none of them have yet to materialize.

"Now I see why those joints don't happen, but it's a different thing when you got will and both your minds are set on it; it should happen," he said. "But I can see why that sh-- is hard, like all those f---in' joints that were supposed to happen back in the days."

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