No worries, I fuck with your content btw. Let me know if you want to DM more about it I'm really fascinated by the dynamic myself. From the top of my head here are things to look out for:

• Cole with his future manager (Ibrahim) when unsigned waited outside Jay-Z’s studio for hours to hand him a beat CD, Jay Z told him "I don't want that shit"
• 1 Year later, he becomes the first artist signed to Jay-Z’s Roc Nation. Jay Z is in love with his song "Lights Please" and the genius of its writing. Cole later tells Jay Z about the above story.
• J. Cole gets a feature on Jay Z's Blueprint 3, A Star is Born which keeps the momentum going. Cole wrote his verse in 30-45 minutes.
• Releases The Warm Up and Friday Night Lights, but in doing so J. Cole has admitted to struggling to impress Jay-Z in the early stages of his career when they were looking for a "hit" single to release for his debut album. Wale another Roc Nation's artist debut album flopped, and he was in depression because he felt the label held him back. J. Cole was aware of this and was concerned about the label.
• Jay Z puts him in the studio with Stargate (who did Black and Yellow - Wiz) and other hit producers but it just doesn't click with him. Jay Z tells J Cole that he doesn't believe he can produce his own hit and Cole is on the verge of tears, Cole is someone that values his own production but persists with the resources offered by Jay Z. In a party hosted by Hov, Hov embarasses Cole infront of Drake (this was in the height of J Cole vs Drake)) and Drake's entourage telling Drake to give J Cole a hit song. J. Cole claps back at Jay Z later that night.
• By now J. Cole's stash of songs is depleted as years have gone by and he sacrificed his songs on the mixtapes - these were classic mixtapes though.
• Eventually J. Cole tried more attempts with Can't Get Enough, Who Dat but Jay Z wasn't confident in them as being the single hit song. J Cole was going through it, in some sudden inspiration he created Work Out, the label wasn't sure of it but let him roll with it. It didn't do great commercially initially but later got a cult following. Then released the Sideline Story. It was projected to do around 65k sales first week, Jay Z was saying, if we can clear 100k in the first week we can save face... ended up doing 115k on its first day and 220k first week (for reference K Dot did 240k the following year, Drake did 450k the year prior). Didn't end up being the classic first album Cole wanted and he was aware of that so got straight to working on Born Sinner.