Jharrel Jerome Says He Used to Rap for Entry Into Basketball Games

Jharrel Jerome says his love for storytelling started with rap.

During a recent episode of The Almanac of Rap, the Emmy-winning actor reflected on growing up in The Bronx, where rap played a major role in how he learned to tell stories.

"I was rapping to get into basketball games at the park," Jerome said. "No, for real."

According to the actor, older kids would regularly challenge younger players to spit a verse before allowing them onto the court.

"I'll never forget it," he recalled. "I'm like 12, 13 years old, trying to get into pickup games, and there's cats 17, 18. One dude was like, 'You want to play?' I said, 'Yeah.' He goes, 'Bars.'"

Caught off guard, Jerome responded the only way he knew how.

"I just did like a 16-bar Eminem verse," he said. "He was like, 'All right, all right, all right.'"

While the story is seemingly a memory Jerome will never forget, he went on to explain that music was his first creative passion and the foundation for the storytelling skills he would later bring to acting.

"Music was the first love," he said. "I always loved rhyming, rhythm, poetry, storytelling through the art of the voice."

Whether writing songs, poetry or trying to impress a girlfriend, Jerome said he was constantly searching for ways to express himself through words.

It wasn't until high school and college that he began channeling that passion into acting.

"It was always more so about the words first," he said. "It was always more so about the storytelling. That's all I cared about."

For Jerome, acting ultimately became another way to do what he'd loved all along: step into different perspectives and tell meaningful stories.

"Not because of the movie star aspect of it," he said. "I just knew I wanted to be somebody that wasn't me for a second and tell a story."

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