{"id":238788,"date":"2025-10-25T00:46:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T00:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/238788\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T00:46:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T00:46:09","slug":"jharrel-jerome-on-fame-loneliness-and-his-new-mixtape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/238788\/","title":{"rendered":"Jharrel Jerome on Fame, Loneliness, and His New Mixtape"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Growing up, Jharrel Jerome thought he\u2019d be a doctor \u2014 maybe a lawyer. That was the track in his house. But his mother, who had Gang Starr, Tribe, Big Pun, and LL Cool J on repeat, slipped him an MP3 player loaded with The Great Adventures of Slick Rick, and suddenly, everything he thought he wanted changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the Bronx, we think about hip-hop before we think about Hollywood,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s more of a chance you\u2019ll pick up a mic than end up in a movie.\u201d Still, by the time high school rolled around, Jerome knew he didn\u2019t want to stay in his neighborhood \u2014 he wanted something different for himself. \u201cI told my mom I wanted to go to school in the city,\u201d he says. \u201cMy parents put their heads together and said, \u2018If that\u2019s what you want, the only schools we can afford are the performing-arts ones \u2014 but you\u2019ll have to audition.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

So he did, for every major acting program in New York City, and he got into all of them. Jerome chose Fiorello H. La Guardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts \u2014 a place where he learned craft, discipline, and how to stand out. \u201cI was one of four Black kids in my program,\u201d he says. \u201cThe only one from the Bronx. So I held on tight to who I was.\u201d Holding on meant rapping between classes, freestyling in the hallways, and selling burned CDs of his first mixtape to friends.<\/p>\n

Acting wasn\u2019t a detour so much as a door that swung open fast: Moonlight out the gate at 19, an Emmy for When They See Us at 21. Now 28, he\u2019s back to his first love with his mixtape More Than a Bronx Tale<\/a> a project made in collaboration with Feeture. \u201cThe beauty of rapping is that I get to play all my sides \u2014 the lover, the fighter, the son \u2014 all in one project,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

What came first for you, acting or music?
Poetry, honestly. Before I ever thought about being in front of a camera, I was obsessed with words \u2014 the rhythm of them, the way a line could paint a whole scene. The first time I ever listened to a song like it was a movie was The Great Adventures of Slick Rick. That album made me see stories in sound. After that came the poems \u2014 fifth, sixth grade \u2014 and I had these little notebooks filled front to back. I\u2019d enter contests, write verses for girls I liked, and record songs on my computer mic. That was my first language.<\/p>\n

Acting showed up later, when I started to see art as a way out \u2014 or maybe a way forward. I was this dramatic-ass kid who was always telling stories and bouncing around everywhere, so when my parents told me I could go to school in the city if I auditioned for a performing-arts program, it clicked. I didn\u2019t know what I was doing, just that I had something to say. Somehow, I got into all four acting schools I auditioned for. And even while I was studying the craft, I was still that Bronx kid freestyling in the hallways, burning mixtapes for five dollars, finding my voice through rhyme. It\u2019s always been both.<\/p>\n

Acting took off fast \u2014 Moonlight, then an Emmy at 21. How did that speed shape you, and what brought you back to music once it did?
I don\u2019t think I really processed it until now. If you look at all my past interviews, I always said I felt like I was still dreaming. This is probably the first time I can say I\u2019m actually processing it \u2014 that I feel like I\u2019m no longer dreaming, but living in reality.<\/p>\n

When Moonlight won the Oscar and then When They See Us happened, it was like my feet left the ground overnight. There was this disorientation \u2014 feeling lifted, ungrounded, unsure how to hold the sudden fame, and learning, slowly, how to sit in it. Everyone started seeing me differently, and that made me start seeing myself differently. I didn\u2019t know how to explain what was happening, so I put it all into the music.<\/p>\n

If you listen to my early songs, you can hear that \u2014 how Hollywood felt massive, almost lonely. I was proud, but I was also trying to find my footing in a world that didn\u2019t make sense yet. Winning the Emmy stripped me of my essence in some ways; it put me in a box I wasn\u2019t ready to sit in. But now, I\u2019m learning to sit comfortably, to trust myself again. That\u2019s what\u2019s grounding the new music. People can feel more of who I am because I finally do.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve seen A Bronx Tale. What does the mixtape\u2019s title mean to you, and who inspires you?
Yeah, it\u2019s one of my favorites. I\u2019ve always loved gangster films \u2014 A Bronx Tale, Goodfellas, Casino \u2014 all of it. When I was a kid, I\u2019d look at those DVDs and think, That\u2019s where we\u2019re from. But for me, More Than a Bronx Tale isn\u2019t about that movie; it\u2019s about expanding the story. It\u2019s me saying the Bronx is more than what people expect, that our stories can hold softness, poetry, and depth too.<\/p>\n

When it comes to inspiration, I look up to the ones who blurred the lines before me \u2014 Childish Gambino, Jamie Foxx \u2014 artists who didn\u2019t pick one lane but mastered both. They showed it\u2019s possible to move through film and music with the same integrity, the same storytelling. And when I saw Lady Gaga in A Star Is Born, I was floored \u2014 that kind of duality, that raw honesty, is rare. As for collaborations, I want that nod from the OGs \u2014 Jadakiss, Method Man \u2014 the ones who shaped the city. But I also want to reach across genres, work with people like Kendrick, Cole, Tame Impala, Jungle, even Kaytranada. Let me bring a little Bronx bounce to a house record \u2014 that\u2019s the dream.<\/p>\n

\u201cHomecoming \u201925\u201d sounds like more than a song title; it feels like a moment. What did coming home mean for you?
Last year, I moved back to the Bronx for a while, and it grounded me in a way I didn\u2019t know I needed. L.A. had me feeling lost \u2014 missing calls from my family, not eating the food I grew up on, slowly forgetting the little things that made me feel like me. I used to think that changing meant growing, but I wasn\u2019t happy.<\/p>\n

Going home reminded me that you can\u2019t change a New Yorker, you can only forget for a bit and then find your way back. The rain, the noise, the too-many-people energy, I missed all of it.<\/p>\n

For a lot of people, this project is their introduction to you as a musician. What do you want them to feel when they listen?
Home. Not geography \u2014 belonging. Acting lets me disappear into other people\u2019s stories, but music doesn\u2019t give you that cover. It\u2019s just you and a mic. That\u2019s why I wanted to release it under my own name \u2014 not as two identities, but one. The goal isn\u2019t to prove I can do both; it\u2019s to show that both come from the same place: storytelling.<\/p>\n

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