Here's something that will make every struggling New York theater professional laugh and cry, but not in the good movie kind of way. Rapper Jim Jones, a top 10, gold record-selling veteran of the Harlem-based Dipset Group, earned critical praise for his one-off performance of Hip-Hop Monologues: Inside the Life and Mind of Jim Jones last November. At the time, Jones was even talking about taking the monologue to Broadway, instead reviving the monogue in the week before the release of his major label debut, Prey IV Reign, in March. The monologue endeared New York theater audiences to normally crowbar-separated world of hip hop, but Jones isn't going to be winning those audiences with his recent explanation of why he performed his monologue: it was all about the Benjamins.
Contact Music reports that Jones was solely interested in the pay check that came with his work, stating, "I'm not one of the people who say I do things for the craft of it." Anyone who works in theater in New York knows that any check you get for doing an off-Broadway show is laughable to what you can get for a hit album (or for that matter, a 10-second cameo on a bad CBS sitcom), so unless there was a shady business deal involved, Jones' explanation of his bottom-line focus for his off-Broadway play seems kinda nuts.
Perhaps Jones' real reasons can be explained by his other statement:
"I should hope I've created a new lane for rappers who are woody (brave) enough to complete a task like this to go into a whole other form of revenue." Jones, of course, does not have a pristine reputation, what with his his arrest record, and stance on snitches. While an off-Broadway show may not do much in terms of the short-term pay check, positive reviews, rising liberal guilt sympathy, and the revival of Jones's artistic integrity may have made an entire heralded New York theater production Jones' idea of a clever marketing campaign. After the dissapointing sales of Prey IV Reign, however, I guess Jones felt free to make public his real motivations. At least he's honest.
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