Jharrel Jerome Says He Felt Alone in Hollywood After His Emmy Win

Growing up, Jharrel Jerome thought he’d be a doctor — maybe a lawyer. That was the track in his house. But his mother, who had Gang Starr, Tribe, Big Pun, and LL Cool J on repeat, slipped him an MP3 player loaded with The Great Adventures of Slick Rick, and suddenly, everything he thought he wanted changed.

“In the Bronx, we think about hip-hop before we think about Hollywood,” he says. “There’s more of a chance you’ll pick up a mic than end up in a movie.” Still, by the time high school rolled around, Jerome knew he didn’t want to stay in his neighborhood — he wanted something different for himself. “I told my mom I wanted to go to school in the city,” he says. “My parents put their heads together and said, ‘If that’s what you want, the only schools we can afford are the performing-arts ones — but you’ll have to audition.’”

So he did, for every major acting program in New York City, and he got into all of them. Jerome chose Fiorello H. La Guardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts — a place where he learned craft, discipline, and how to stand out. “I was one of four Black kids in my program,” he says. “The only one from the Bronx. So I held on tight to who I was.” Holding on meant rapping between classes, freestyling in the hallways, and selling burned CDs of his first mixtape to friends.

Acting wasn’t a detour so much as a door that swung open fast: Moonlight out the gate at 19, an Emmy for When They See Us at 21. Now 28, he’s back to his first love with his mixtape More Than a Bronx Tale a project made in collaboration with Feeture. “The beauty of rapping is that I get to play all my sides — the lover, the fighter, the son — all in one project,” he says.

What came first for you, acting or music?
Poetry, honestly. Before I ever thought about being in front of a camera, I was obsessed with words — the rhythm of them, the way a line could paint a whole scene. The first time I ever listened to a song like it was a movie was The Great Adventures of Slick Rick. That album made me see stories in sound. After that came the poems — fifth, sixth grade — and I had these little notebooks filled front to back. I’d enter contests, write verses for girls I liked, and record songs on my computer mic. That was my first language.

Acting showed up later, when I started to see art as a way out — or maybe a way forward. I was this dramatic-ass kid who was always telling stories and bouncing around everywhere, so when my parents told me I could go to school in the city if I auditioned for a performing-arts program, it clicked. I didn’t know what I was doing, just that I had something to say. Somehow, I got into all four acting schools I auditioned for. And even while I was studying the craft, I was still that Bronx kid freestyling in the hallways, burning mixtapes for five dollars, finding my voice through rhyme. It’s always been both.

Acting took off fast — Moonlight, then an Emmy at 21. How did that speed shape you, and what brought you back to music once it did?
I don’t think I really processed it until now. If you look at all my past interviews, I always said I felt like I was still dreaming. This is probably the first time I can say I’m actually processing it — that I feel like I’m no longer dreaming, but living in reality.

When Moonlight won the Oscar and then When They See Us happened, it was like my feet left the ground overnight. There was this disorientation — feeling lifted, ungrounded, unsure how to hold the sudden fame, and learning, slowly, how to sit in it. Everyone started seeing me differently, and that made me start seeing myself differently. I didn’t know how to explain what was happening, so I put it all into the music.

If you listen to my early songs, you can hear that — how Hollywood felt massive, almost lonely. I was proud, but I was also trying to find my footing in a world that didn’t make sense yet. Winning the Emmy stripped me of my essence in some ways; it put me in a box I wasn’t ready to sit in. But now, I’m learning to sit comfortably, to trust myself again. That’s what’s grounding the new music. People can feel more of who I am because I finally do.

I’m sure you’ve seen A Bronx Tale. What does the mixtape’s title mean to you, and who inspires you?
Yeah, it’s one of my favorites. I’ve always loved gangster films — A Bronx Tale, Goodfellas, Casino — all of it. When I was a kid, I’d look at those DVDs and think, That’s where we’re from. But for me, More Than a Bronx Tale isn’t about that movie; it’s about expanding the story. It’s me saying the Bronx is more than what people expect, that our stories can hold softness, poetry, and depth too.

When it comes to inspiration, I look up to the ones who blurred the lines before me — Childish Gambino, Jamie Foxx — artists who didn’t pick one lane but mastered both. They showed it’s possible to move through film and music with the same integrity, the same storytelling. And when I saw Lady Gaga in A Star Is Born, I was floored — that kind of duality, that raw honesty, is rare. As for collaborations, I want that nod from the OGs — Jadakiss, Method Man — the ones who shaped the city. But I also want to reach across genres, work with people like Kendrick, Cole, Tame Impala, Jungle, even Kaytranada. Let me bring a little Bronx bounce to a house record — that’s the dream.

“Homecoming ’25” sounds like more than a song title; it feels like a moment. What did coming home mean for you?
Last year, I moved back to the Bronx for a while, and it grounded me in a way I didn’t know I needed. L.A. had me feeling lost — missing calls from my family, not eating the food I grew up on, slowly forgetting the little things that made me feel like me. I used to think that changing meant growing, but I wasn’t happy.

Going home reminded me that you can’t change a New Yorker, you can only forget for a bit and then find your way back. The rain, the noise, the too-many-people energy, I missed all of it.

For a lot of people, this project is their introduction to you as a musician. What do you want them to feel when they listen?
Home. Not geography — belonging. Acting lets me disappear into other people’s stories, but music doesn’t give you that cover. It’s just you and a mic. That’s why I wanted to release it under my own name — not as two identities, but one. The goal isn’t to prove I can do both; it’s to show that both come from the same place: storytelling.