JAY ROCK IS THE LAST OF A DYING BREED. He’s an in-your-face gangster rapper who proudly rocks Blood red. He was born and raised in L.A.’s Nickerson Gardens projects. He recalls Compton heroes like MC Eiht. And he’s not shy about his affiliations. “I represent the ghetto,” says Jay Rock, 23, sitting in a Queensbridge, N.Y., hotel lobby. He’s dipped head to toe in red. “I been there all my life...and I know real dudes gonna be able to relate to it.”
After being discovered by Dude Dawg, a neighborhood acquaintance with music industry ties, Jay Rock, born Johnnie McKenzie, took his rhyming hobby to face-to-face meetings with label executives. One such meeting was with Naim Ali of Warner Bros., who took a liking to Rock’s gritty street tales delivered in raspy, ear-catching baritone.
Rock’s debut, Follow Me Home (Warner Bros.), is filled with classically drawn gangster music, with an additional lift from guest appearances by Cali compatriot The Game on the title track and Lil Wayne on the first single, “All My Life.”
“I met Wayne back home, and we exchanged phone numbers,” Rock says about his emotional collabo with Weezy. “When I got the track from Cool & Dre, [Wayne] was in Virginia doing a couple of shows. I brought my boys, flew where he was at, and we got some studio time. You can hear we got that real chemistry going, live and direct in the studio.”
But Rock has no plans to be as big as Wayne if it means sacrificing his sound. “I’m trying to bring that real music back. Straight to the point, no ‘Lollipop’-type stuff,” he says. “Ain’t no faking or no flukes. That’s what I’m trying to bring back to the game.”
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