Schools Denounce J. Cole Video; Seek Ban Over Negative Images

Fayetteville, North Carolina rapper J. Cole has come under fire for a video that features students from Fayetteville State University and a local high school.

Students from FSU and EE Smith High School, along with band members, are featured in J. Cole’s latest video “Who Dat.”

Officials are so outraged over the language and sexually explicit themes in the video that they are attempting to have the video pulled from the Internet, claiming J. Cole illegally used their high school/college logos.

“I think it shows the school and the city in a negative light,” Superintendent Frank Till Jr. said in a statement. “I think it was a legitimate mistake on the school’s part.”

Till claimed that E.E. Smith’s Principal Clinton Robinson and the school’s music director signed waivers allowing the students to participate, but the decision was not cleared with higher-ups in the school system.

Administrators hoped that the appearances in the local rapper’s video would help bring new members to the school, but due to the video’s explicit themes, Superintendent Till believes it will have opposite effect.

“There will be some people who see this video and they won’t see past the language used by that young man,” Till told the Fayetteville Observer. “And they’ll see it as a reflection of the students at E.E. Smith. Their test scores were out of this world this year, but this hangs over that. I think it’s a shame.”

J. Cole is signed to Jay-Z’s Roc Nation label. His debut album October 26th.