J. Cole went straight for the jugular when firing back at Kendrick Lamar … calling K.dot’s critically acclaimed “To Pimp a Butterfly” album the audio version of a sleeping pill, and folks are mad.

On Friday, Cole left the rap internet in a tizzy thanks to his surprise project “Might Delete Later” … which features the song “7 Minute Drill,” and a direct response to Kendrick’s “Like That” disses that dominated the Billboard Charts these past couple weeks.

Cole took a page outta Jay-Z‘s infamous Nas diss track here … Kendrick’s albums “good kid, m.A.A.d city” and “DAMN” were given their due credit, but JC writes off ‘TPAB’ off as overrated trash that got the attention of outside media.

Cole coldly raps … “[Kendrick] still doin’ shows, but fell off like The Simpsons/Your first s*** was classic, your last s*** was tragic/Your second s*** put n****s to sleep, but they gassed it/Your third s*** was massive and that was your prime I was trailin’ right behind and I just now hit mine.”

Terrace Martin, the primary producer for ‘TPAB’ and Kendrick’s ex-TDE exec President Punch all took exception to the bars, as did several other Cali artists … Jason Martin and El Prez. There’s been a lot of chatter about Cole’s take on ‘Butterfly’ … some agree with him, others say he’s dead wrong.

Also … ‘Joe Budden Podcast’ cohost Officially Ice is stirring the pot as well by welcoming the anarchy. On its face, Cole may have caused a rap Civil War. No official word from Drake yet.