*Iconic Rapper Capo Jim Jones chops it up with Radio and TV personality and host of EURWEB.com Spotlight, Jazmyn ‘Jaz’ Summers on his dope new mixtape “Gangsta Grillz,” his relationship with Cam’ron, new money moves and he drops a little tea on him and Chrissy.
“Gangsta Grillz” with DJ Drama includes collabos with Migos, Maino, Dave East, Fivio Foreign, and Fabolous.
“It’s a dope project I’m putting out,” Jones tells EURweb.com Spotlight. “I got to work with a lot of young and upcoming artists also a lot of great legends. It was very spontaneous and organic. I’m excited about all the participation from all the artists It’s a new energy in New york. It’s a new sound. Everybody starting to do this drill music so i wanted to encompass all the sounds that people hear inside of the country.”
In working with a lot of young rappers on his mixtape, Jones says he was able to share a little OG advice on succeeding in the rap game.
“If you wanna do music you’re not going to be able to do streets and music,” he advises. “It’s not gonna happen, there’s no way. You gotta take it seriously. You gotta be very disciplined. You gotta be focused. If you are livin’ that life in the streets where it’s risky for you to come outside then the people around you gotta figure out what they job is if they feel that you that important, you’re gonna take them to the next level.”
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Jones disagrees with New York Mayor Eric Adams who recently announced he is seeking to ban drill music from social media platforms. Hypebeast reported that in a recent speech regarding the death of 18-year-old drill rapper Jayquan McKenley/Chii Wvttz, who was shot and killed in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn earlier this month, Adams stated that he will sit down with social media companies and remind them that they “have a civic and corporate responsibility. We pulled Trump off Twitter because of what he was spewing, yet we are allowing music displaying guns, violence — we’re allowing it to stay on these sites. Violent people who are using drill rapping to post who they killed, and then antagonize the people who they are going to kill is what the problem is,” Adams told reporters.
Jim Jones clappped back telling Jaz: “I’m not going to put the violence and the beefs and everything on drill music cuz it’s been violent and it’s been a lotta beefs way before drill music happened. Does drill music heighten it because of the way these young cats are doing the music? Yes in certain situations and yes it looks very tacky, it looks very nasty in certain situations. But we never put ourselves in these kids’ shoes but for me to sit here and paint the kettle black is kinda wrong because I once did the same lifestyle these kids have to live right now. I know what they’re up against when they go outside especially when they don’t have the money to move a certain way so you’re still in the midst of the fire. Who am I to tell a person to not protect yourself. We’re losing so many lives I wish I could tell people to put their guns down. But it’s kinda scary when you come outside and there’s a high chance that someone might shoot at you or might try to kill you.”
“I don’t want nobody to ever forget that when anyone does music it is artistic value no matter what they say, how they say it, who they talking about that’s that person’s art,” Jones continues. “Everybody has a decision whether to play this art. Everybody has a decision whether to listen to this art. Now some of the DJs need to be more responsible when they have a problem with what it’s portraying when they feel it’s war music. You have to consciously make that decision yourself -what records you wanna hit, you dig. Some of the records make us feel good. We’re not actually thinking about what they actually rappin’ about and how crazy it is. It’s just a record that has you in the gym going crazy and sayin’ that’s my shit. You don’t sit down and actually think about what’s goin’ on so everybody has to take a little bit of responsibility but I’m not going to put the violence and the killings in our cities on this drill music and all these kids because the violence and the killings been here before. They’re just following what they see. We have to start with us before we get on them.”
The New York mayor after meeting with Maino, Fivio Foreign and other rappers in New York agreed to work in a coalition to reduce violence and seemed to pull back on his threat to push for a drill music ban.
Recently Jones raised a lot of heat on Gucci after an experience in a store.
“Everybody’s going crazy on this Gucci. I had a bad experience in Gucci. I’m not a person to cancel anything. I’m not a part of nobody’s cancel culture,” he explained to EURweb Spotlight. “If I feel like I’m being done wrong, if I feel like I’m not being handled the way I need to be handled I’m going to voice my opinion no matter where I’m at. If I was in a Black store and I wasn’t gettin’ handled like I need to be handled, I’m gonna call the Black people out. It was about me being handled with respect.  Anybody that goes to that store from my posse got to be handled with respect. They had bad customer service. They didn’t have my sparkling water and my champagne for all this money I’m spending, baby, they didn’t even have fruit for us.”
Black Twitter went crazy and called on Jones to support Black designers.
“If people don’t know about me then they don’t know about me,” he responds. ” Don’t play with me. My whole thing is about supporting black business I have the brown and black bag a whole IG that’s set up to support and highlight black business. I own a bodega in Harlem, the last Black-owned bodega in Harlem. I have a show called “Truth Report” where all I do is highlight Black designers. if you got a store send me the address and we gonna pull up. But you better have some shit that I like, some shit I wanna wear, you got some drip that I like. I’m not supporting you just cuz u Black and you have me wearing some weak shit. Black designer, white designer, designer from Mars, if it’s not that drip you can skip me with it.”
The rapper is also making some new money moves opening up Fit Lit: “It’s a fitness initiative that me Dave East, Maino and Fabolous. We’re changing the perception of coming to the gym and working out. We’re gonna make it feel like you came to the gym and went to a club and had a ball. It will be membership-based and the memberships are based around an NFT community we’ve started. You don’t necessarily have to get the NFT to take the classes. You can sign up and pay for it and hopefully, you’ll get in.” He also wants to help Black folks get into NFTs (nonfungible tokens) and get some knowledge about these potentially profitable opportunities.
Recently, Jim Jone’s former group Dipset did a Verzuz with Lox that most music critics said they lost now he wants to take on lead Lox member Jadakiss. Will he be able to get that smoke from Jadakiss?
“I doubt Jadakiss do it. I don’t think it would make sense (for him). I could do 20 records from 2001 for every year remember that everybody can’t do that. But it would definitely be one of the biggest events in the city all over again. The Verzuz we did is something that probably will not be able to be duplicated. The energy in the room was one of a kind. I haven’t seen a Verzuz with that much energy yet.”
Jones is excited that Dipset member Juelz Santana is expected to be off probation soon.
“That’s my brother. That’s baby bro. I’ll never go too far without him, ” Jones shares with Jaz. “He’s def’ about to be off probation. He’s about to be a totally free man, back in society with no restraints and be able to move like he likes to move with no restraints. When you got that type of pressure on you it takes away from your creativity when you can’t move and groove the way you want to. We ’bout to take it up a notch and everybody.”
Jones and Dipset’s other member Cam’ron have been in some well-publicized beef for years and haven’t spoken since Verzuz. Jones says a Dipset reunion is not out of the question.
“We always brothers. Just cuz brothers don’t speak don’t mean they ain’t brothers. When I love somebody, I love somebody whether I see you every day or every ten years. It don’t falter. The media always wants to put a twist on everything but don’t put nothin else on it.” He says he and Cam’ron are cool.
Jim has been with longtime love Chrissy Lampkin for almost 20 years. A lot of folks followed their often tumultuous relationship on the reality show, “Chrissy and Mr. Jones” but they have stayed together.  The secret Jones says is “to be with somebody you like. Like is more important than love. You can love a person and don’t like a person. Love will carry you through the relationship but if you don’t like the person that love ain’t gonna last too long. I totally like her as a friend and like her as a lover.”
Wedding bells in the future? Jones doesn’t rule it out. Stay tuned he tells Jaz and “watch the movie.”
For his favorite Black designers, more on him and Chrissy and the full convo check out the video at the top of the story and don’t forget to subscribe to Jaz’s YouTube channel.
Interview/article by Jazmyn Summers. Follow her @jaztalk1 on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. Video editing by www.patrickhousefilms.com
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