Jelly Roll joins ‘The Fire with HARDY' to explore the roots of hip-hop, and its role in highlighting issues like incarceration and social justice. They also delve into the influence of Eminem and James Taylor on their respective genres, emphasizing the importance of storytelling in music. The hosts reflect on their shared love for music and its ability to bridge gaps.
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Jelly Roll Tells Apple Music About the Power of Radio and Music in Prison
Jelly Roll: Think about being in jail, being a country music fan, being the only country music fan in jail, the only white kid in this juvenile, and ‘A Great Day to Be Alive' comes on. Nothing about this feels great.
HARDY: I was going to say, does that make you jaded in that moment, are you like, “Yeah, right,” at that point, or are you still positive?
Jelly Roll: It's a three-minute release. You wait for it. Those few songs that made you feel something, like it made you happy, and now I know this to be the power of radio programme, but back then I didn't know. So imagine being up in the middle of the night and you hear a new song now that we now know that to be overnights, right? So you tell the homies, you're like, “Yo, you're not going to believe this. I heard this new T.I. song or this new Travis Tritt song last night at midnight,” and so you'd be up at night waiting for it and you would see the… So by the time the song came and hit, you were already super already hip.
Jelly Roll tells Apple Music about hip-hop inspirations
Jelly Roll: I grew up loving hip hop, hip hop was such a big thing in the late '90s. About my influential years, hip hop had exploded into popular America and I loved, always loved subculture music also. Where everybody else was like Tupac, I had found this group called Three 6 Mafia that had these underground tapes and I had found the darker side of hip hop, and I had found UGK at that point already. So I was hearing these organ-driven records.
Even the first hip hop song I ever wrote, I remember the chorus. I'll never forget it, right? And I think of that all the time because even then I was trying to be Pimp C. You know what I mean? I wasn't trying to be like… I love Jada, because one of my favourite MCs ever, but I was trying to be Pimp C because to me, Pimp C could rap, but he more of had a swag to him. It was that MJG 8Ball kind of thing where they were really relaxed in what they were doing.
I think I've been writing songs from the beginning and we would write all the girl parts that she would sing. We just were so heavily on the artist side that it was like, “Well, where do we fit in? We got to rap, because I can't sing.” You know what I mean? So what do we put between…
HARDY: Did you think that back then? Were you like-
Jelly Roll: Yeah.
HARDY: Really?
Jelly Roll: Yeah, for sure. I was like-
HARDY: Were people telling you… Because you can sing. You just sang.
Jelly Roll: No, not a fucking soul, HARDY, in my life until I was 30.
HARDY: Bro, you can sing a little bit.
Jelly Roll: I was 30. I was 30 before somebody… You know how mad I was when I found out I was a good singer? Because I just wanted one person to tell me my whole life like, “You know what? You're not really bad at that.”
Jelly tells Apple Music about his Emenim Collab
HARDY: What's your Eminem story?
Jelly Roll: Just grew up listening to it. I remember hearing ‘My Name Is' the first time and going, “This is unreal,” but then getting into his catalogue. The easiest way to describe my Eminem thing is and how big of a deal this was for me is that if you came in here right now, and there was a robber that came in here and put a gun and said, “I'm laying everybody in the room and taking everything unless somebody can sing every word of the Eminem Show album, the Marshall Mathers LP and Encore,” and I'd be like, “I got us, boys. Keep your Rolexes on. I will not fail us today.”
My childhood, whenever I got into those years, was consumed between Garth Brooks and Eminem, and I know it's quite a stretch.When I had the chance to play and talking about visionaries or vision-casting, when they called me about that Detroit Music City ode, and they were like, “Yo, there's a chance Em might want you to sing one of his songs with him.” I said, I'm sure it's Sing for the Moment,” and I just knew it. You feel it in your stomach. I was like, “It's the song, and…”
Jelly Roll: The coolest call I ever got was that Eminem was remixing my song. Great guy, man. Great guy. Just everything I thought he would be.
Jelly Roll shares about the song that inspired his career
One of the first songs I ever found by myself in my room and cried to was James Taylor's ‘Fire and Rain.' I remember being 14 or 15 years old and not even sure why I felt so emotional about it. So then I go to my dad, and I'll never forget this because it changed so much of my life. If he wouldn't have done this for me, I don't know if I would've… See, I've never told this story.If he wouldn't have done this for me, I don't know if I'd have been a songwriter.
We get in the car a couple days after I discover the song and I go, “You ever heard of James Taylor?” I just found James Taylor, and my dad's like, “Of course, son.” I was like, “You ever heard a song called Fire and Rain?” He's like, “Yeah,” my dad pops in a cassette tape and plays it right then, and while he's going through it, he's telling me what the song's about.”
