Where you might have least expected the Harlem rapper Jim Jones to be on Friday night was exactly where he was, yawning and meandering his way through a late-night play rehearsal at Roy Arias Studios & Theaters on the fourth floor of a nondescript building just off Times Square. In a pink plaid shirt and a low-hanging pair of light blue True Religion jeans, he looked a little bit like a bored schoolkid who knows the right answers but doesn’t want to repeat them for the hundredth time. Still, he persisted, repeating his lines and hitting his marks, and watching while the rest of the cast smoothed out transitions as musical cues blared from an iPod connected to miniature speakers.
“Hip-Hop Monologues: Inside the Life and Mind of Jim Jones,” — part musical, part play, part promotional vehicle — begins a five-night run on Tuesday at 37 Arts in Manhattan, in conjunction with the release of Mr. Jones’s fourth album, “Pray IV Reign” (Columbia). Even from a rapper who’s lately been making a habit of odd creative choices, dabbling in theater is a decidedly quirky album release tie-in.
Other rappers aren’t “eagerly willing to do a play,” Mr. Jones, 32, said last week at his studio near the flower district. “You can turn from very cool to corny by the time that night is over.”
Rappers have taken to the stage before: Mos Def received strong notices for his work in “Topdog/Underdog,” and Sean Combs’s turn in “A Raisin in the Sun” was a success as a publicity gambit, if not an acting exercise.
But for Mr. Jones, best known for grim street-corner raps and jubilant celebrations of the hip-hop good life, this was an unlikely decision. “Nowadays you’ve got to build an event,” he said. “You’ve got to make people want to be a part of you, want to get that record, get that jacket you had on, make them say a couple of words they hear you say. You’ve got to become a novelty.”
A longtime New York rap fixture as part of the Diplomats crew from Harlem, he’s been a reliable presence on mixtapes with occasional minor hits. But in the Diplomats he’s never been the star, always the beta to the rapper Cam’ron’s alpha.
At least that was true until 2006, when Mr. Jones released the song “We Fly High,” which became a surprise pop hit, reaching No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and becoming a cultural touchstone. Professional athletes began doing the accompanying dance move after big plays. Suddenly Mr. Jones was in possession of a rare commodity: a crossover New York rap hit.
“Hip-Hop Monologues: Inside the Life and Mind of Jim Jones,” — part musical, part play, part promotional vehicle — begins a five-night run on Tuesday at 37 Arts in Manhattan, in conjunction with the release of Mr. Jones’s fourth album, “Pray IV Reign” (Columbia). Even from a rapper who’s lately been making a habit of odd creative choices, dabbling in theater is a decidedly quirky album release tie-in.
Other rappers aren’t “eagerly willing to do a play,” Mr. Jones, 32, said last week at his studio near the flower district. “You can turn from very cool to corny by the time that night is over.”
Rappers have taken to the stage before: Mos Def received strong notices for his work in “Topdog/Underdog,” and Sean Combs’s turn in “A Raisin in the Sun” was a success as a publicity gambit, if not an acting exercise.
But for Mr. Jones, best known for grim street-corner raps and jubilant celebrations of the hip-hop good life, this was an unlikely decision. “Nowadays you’ve got to build an event,” he said. “You’ve got to make people want to be a part of you, want to get that record, get that jacket you had on, make them say a couple of words they hear you say. You’ve got to become a novelty.”
A longtime New York rap fixture as part of the Diplomats crew from Harlem, he’s been a reliable presence on mixtapes with occasional minor hits. But in the Diplomats he’s never been the star, always the beta to the rapper Cam’ron’s alpha.
At least that was true until 2006, when Mr. Jones released the song “We Fly High,” which became a surprise pop hit, reaching No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and becoming a cultural touchstone. Professional athletes began doing the accompanying dance move after big plays. Suddenly Mr. Jones was in possession of a rare commodity: a crossover New York rap hit.
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