Jharrel Jerome on Fame, Loneliness, and His New Mixtape

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-ar