Jelly Roll Talks Babies And Getting Busted Over BBQ - MySpace

It’s roughly three hours before he’s due to hit the stage at The Studio at Webster Hall in NYC when country rap artist Jelly Roll arrives at Brother Jimmy’s BBQ on East 16th Street. Some pre-show nerves are starting to show. His fingers tapping, his right leg restless, moving as if it wants to run a marathon even though he’s sitting down. You’d never guess that less than two weeks earlier he’d rocked a crowd of thousands at the annual Gathering of the Juggalos.

Jelly Roll had one of the prime slots at the Gathering — a 7:30pm set time on the main stage on Saturday night, immediately after rock acts Emmure and (HED)Pe, and right before hip-hop acts Hopsin, Bone Thugs, and the event’s creators, Insane Clown Posse.

“Between each song I would look to the right of the stage, and it would just be getting thicker and thicker,” Jelly Roll says of the night. “I’d see the crowd get bigger as I was rapping, just thousands of people pouring in, but I would look to the right, and I’d see Hopsin, then I’d see Bone, then I’d see Insane Clown Posse, then I’d see (HED)Pe. I’m like, 'oh shit, the whole festival is watching my set.'”

New York City, however, is something entirely new for Jelly Roll. Despite being a veteran artist with over a decade of experience, this was going to be the first time he hit the stage in NYC, and he had no idea how his country infused brand of hip-hop would be received.

Later in the evening his concerns would be assuaged when a fan wearing a bandana, and a Michael Jordan Dream Team throwback jersey shouted, “I fucks with your music!” Jelly Roll was thrilled by the exultation, both as a review, and, as he noted, hearing it in an authentic New York accent.

That was later in the night, though. Sitting at the table, waiting for his order to arrive, he was nervous. Nervous, but still calm enough to joke about the location for dinner, which was chosen by his management. “No matter what city I’m in I always end up where they play country music, and where they serve whiskey,” he says with a laugh. “Whenever I go to Vegas we always end up at Hogs & Heifers. When we go to LA we always end up at Saddle Ranch on Sunset. We always end up where there’s a mechanical bull, or a live band.”

While there was no mechanical bull in the house, there was a marquee advertising Admiral Pete and the Seamen would be performing later.

Jelly Roll, obviously, would miss their performance, as he’d be at Webster Hall for his own show — a date on his Sobriety Sucks tour, which is in conjunction with the release of his latest full length album of the same name. The title, much like the music, is personal in nature, as Jelly Roll notes he learned about sobriety the hard way.

“I had to sober up for quite a while,” he explains. “My P.O. (parole officer) called me up for a random drug screen, and I failed for about everything you could fail for but crystal meth and heroin.

“I blamed it on everything but myself,” he admits. “I can only talk about it now because it’s over, but I was on codeine. I was drinking a lot of cough syrup. It was bad, man. It was hard to come off of.”

He calls the personal revelations on Sobriety Sucks, “Liberating.”

In a far better place now, Jelly Roll beams at any mention of his daughter, Bailee, or soon to be born son, Noah (who arrived into the world happy and healthy before this article was published). The Sobriety Sucks tour was actually booked with the due date in mind, as Jelly Roll and his team laid out a plan to work their way down the East Coast, moving closer and closer to his home of Tennessee as the due date nears.

Incarcerated when his daughter was born, Jelly Roll is at peak levels of excitement about seeing the birth of his son. “I get to be here for this one,” he says, smiling from ear to ear. “I’m stoked, man! It’s the whole experience. I got to go to the doctor’s appointments, the ultrasound. I missed all of that with Bailee.”

In addition to being there for all of the pregnancy milestones, before he left for tour, Jelly Roll became quite the children’s furniture craftsman, noting, “I got to put together his bouncer, (and) I got to put together his crib.”

Even with those skills, he jokes that he might hit the road again when it comes time to change diapers. “I’ll be on tour a lot,” he says with a laugh. “I got an 8-year-old. I think she’ll be doing a lot of the diaper changing. ‘It’s your cute little brother, you gotta help him.’”

He knows that if his daughter does end up on diaper duty, it will lead to jokes for his son later in life. “My best friend, Struggle, he’s an artist signed to Yelawolf, every time I see his 15-year-old son I say, ‘I changed your diapers!’”

This is a prime example of Jelly Roll's double life. He explains his two starkly different sides, saying, “When I’m at home I’m with my daughter. We’re at the park, and we hang out, and I help her do her schoolwork. Her principal knows me, and her teachers know me. When I’m on tour it’s fucking debauchery, and we smoke a lot of fuckin' weed, and we drink a lot.”

Speaking of those teachers, and principal, their reactions to the 300+ pound rapper who is covered in tattoos have ranged greatly. “I’ve had some of them be honest, and be like, ‘We listen to your music, and it’s not our thing,’ and I’ve had a principal take me aside and say, ‘I’m a hip-hop fan for 20+ years, this shit’s awesome. Keep doing it.”

That principal will be happy to know Jelly Roll will be following up this year’s Sobriety Sucks with a collaborative effort with Lil’ Wyte, their second, titled No Filter 2. That principal also would have enjoyed being in the crowd at Jelly Roll’s show at Webster Hall, although at that point he’d be the one leading the double life.

After dinner, and a raucous performance that included numerous shots of whiskey that were preceded by the call to, “Holler and swaller,” Jelly Roll and his team made their way upstairs to the Marlin Room at Webster Hall to show support for rapper Chris Webby, who also had a show that night.

With his first NYC performance now under his belt, Jelly Roll will be returning to the city in October for a show with Yelawolf at Brooklyn Bowl. His nerves will likely be lessened, but if history is any indictor, he’ll still end up at a BBQ joint before the show.