J. Coles’ 4 Your Eyez Only: A Dreamville Film documentary aired on HBO this past Saturday (Apr. 15). In the film, which shares that same name as Cole’s most recent album, 4 Your Eyez Only, Cole shares footage of the scene that inspired his song “Neighbors,” the seventh track on the album.
“Neighbors” details the events in which a home that the Dreamville team rents for their artists was raided by a SWAT team. Ibrahim “Ib” Hamad, president of J. Cole’s Dreamville label, confirmed on Twitter that the video was real. Producer Elite described the events in an interview with Hot New Hip-Hop:
“Apparently what happened was, we were all in Austin, Texas, for SXSW; thankfully no one was in the house when this went down. One of the neighbors told the police we were growing weed or selling drugs out of this house. And there was a huge investigation, like a million-dollar investigation. They flew helicopters over, sent an entire SWAT team armed with weapons, broke down the door and searched the whole house. Thankfully nobody was in the house. Our engineer Juro “Mez” Davis had just stepped out for lunch and he came back and saw the SWAT team busting down the door.”
Cole recently told the New York Times that he “wrote six songs that weekend,” including what would become “Neighbors.” See the SWAT team footage below:
@KingOfQueenz is this real footage from the "neighbors think I'm selling dope" story?!
— Peter Dutton (@PeterDutton5) April 16, 2017
— Ibrahim H. (@KingOfQueenz) April 16, 2017
