How’d you get your name JP?
JP stands for Jeremiah Prophet. My government middle name is Jeremiah who is a biblical prophet. Now, the reason I took on the prophet is because I deeply identify with the Jeremiah of the Bible. He received his purpose at a young age and I liken that to how I was born. From the trauma of my birth experience, it's clear that I'm supposed to be here doing something powerful. I was supposed to be born brain dead. My mother had to go through 36 hours of labor, thereafter undergoing a C-section so I could actually be delivered. Along the way I wasn't getting enough oxygen, so the doctors thought I'd arrive without the capacity of proper brain function. It was excruciatingly painful for both my mother and me. And yet, in those moments, I was empowered to defy the odds. My grandmothers came in and prayed over my mother and me, vocalizing and embodying the purpose I have to speak Life. God blew breath in my body and in my purpose right from the start, similar to Jeremiah of the Bible. I also really identify with my middle name for a bunch of different reasons. My family used to always just call me Jeremiah or J so as to not confuse me with my father who has the same first name that I do. Also my parents wanted to give me a J name, and my mother got the idea to name me Jeremiah while she was dreaming one night. My being and my purpose are rooted in prayers and dreams. That's dope to me.
What made you decide to become a rapper?
Well, for one, I love it. I love to do it. The percussive elements of expression. The freedom of its form. The gratification of achieving precision. The exhilaration of stumbling upon clever bars. That all grows out the energy I get from it. I first encountered that energy when I moved to Mt. Vernon, NY. I was born in Cleveland but my family relocated to NY during the mid-‘90s. The energy was all over NY. This was the time that saw the emergence of the Bad Boy, Ruff Ryders, Murder Inc. era. So New Yorkish. It deeply impacted me - seeing the Ruff Ryders crew mob down the street or passing by a DMX video shoot or hearing that Diddy was at his son's football game. The energy was crazy. It drew me towards rap. And everybody used to spit, everywhere. In the freshman basement at my high school. In youth group at church. At little league baseball practice. Through all of that I found out I had some skills in it. And I loved it. So I never stopped and decided to make a thing of it. I also believe in the power of the art form. The hip-hop community and its creators have an influence that I think we take for granted at times. Words have incredible power on their own. Words delivered rhythmically, with vibrations and music, take that power to another stratosphere. I truly believe that the power of life and death is in the tongue. Rap is a purveyor of that type of power. If we knew what type of power we had, maybe we'd say different things. I know the power of words, of music, of art, of rap and I intend to use it for Life.
What’s the first rap song you ever heard? Where were you? How did it affect you?
I don't know if it's the first song I actually heard, but the first one that had an influence on me was "Jump" by Kris Kross. It made me realize what hip-hop was, I guess. I just remember being in my aunt's car riding down Lee Road by Kerruish Park in Cleveland trying to master the "wiggety wiggety wiggety wack" line. My aunt could spit that part crazy, and my younger brother probably put up a valiant effort. I definitely couldn't catch the flow at the time. I guess I wasn't that dexterous yet. That was a feelgood song to me. I just remember fun times, laughter, smiles. Windows down, radio all the way up. It just felt free.
What was your inspiration for “No”?
Resilience. It takes a lot of resilience to keep pursuing a dream in spite of external and internalized doubt. It takes a lot of resilience to keep screaming, assuming that people ain't hearing you, though. It takes a lot of resilience to keep seeing yourself as a loved child of God when society doesn't see you or treat you like it. When I wrote it I was in a very defiant place. I had recently performed at the 50th Anniversary March on Washington, and tensions around racially motivated violence were already brewing. Part of my response to the systems at work in these violences is that I won't live down to people's false and oppressive expectations for me as a young black man. And I refuse to subscribe to the politics of respectability as the way to assuage the ills we're facing. These notions privilege the appearance of purity. But I'd rather affirm people's humanity instead of allowing people's shortcomings to justify why they deserve a tragic demise. We see it all the time. When a young black person gets killed by police, the media follows it up with calculated smear campaigns to illustrate why the victim deserved their death. It's despicable. And I say "No" to these systems. I'm not drinking their juice. And even though I'm a minister I don't drink the juice of religious systems devoid of the divine entities around which those systems were originally oriented. That leaves for loveless, power-hungry, mean-spirited communities. And I'm not about that life. You can try to put me in a box, and I'll say "No." Even if ears and hearts aren't ready for what I'm saying or who I'm here for.
Are you working on an upcoming album? Tell us about it.
I am! I recently finished a successful Kickstarter campaign to raise money to produce it. And now I'm working on it. Been in the studio, writing, mapping things out. I'm really excited about it. I've got some things to say. I've got some sounds and stories that have been on my heart for a while. I've been in this space where I'm absolutely fascinated by what it means to be fulfilling the dreams of my ancestors whose faith sustained them in the wilderness. I don't know that I wanna say too much more about the project's content because I'm in the process of creating it. But I'm incredibly excited to be creating it, and I can't wait to get it out there.
Prayers & Pot Liquor mixtape on Mediafire | Soundcloud
jprophetpap.com | Twitter [@papfamjp] | Facebook | Youtu
jprophetpap.com | Twitter [@papfamjp] | Facebook | Youtu