Jéan P the MC
By Alexis Evans, Contributor
The journey began in Canton, Ohio--a city known for the Pro Football Hall of Fame and ranked Forbes’ ninth most miserable city in the United States in 2010. It was in this blue-collar city that a young Jéan Pfound and began developing his passion. It wasn’t until his eighth grade teacher, Mrs. Mitchell, assigned him to write a rap for a book he was reading for class that Jéan P finally discovered his ability to rap.
“I was really shy in school,” said Jéan P. “Nobody expected me to rap, they just expected me to do everybody’s homework, but that day my teacher picked me first.”
Riddled with nerves, a 13-year-old Jéan, dressed in a matching shirt and cap stepped to the front of the class and let out, “I’m walking down ya block and you know I’m bling blingin’ / Looking at my ice and your eyes start stinging / Jumped in my new ride just got paid / I forgot did I mention I’m up in the Escalade…”
After spitting his rhyme, which he had been practicing all night, the entire classroom sat in tense silence. It was only seconds before the classroom erupted with shouts of, “Oh my gosh Jéan that was so good!” Mrs. Mitchell liked the rap so much that she bumped his D in the class to an A and had him go to all of the other classes in Lehman Middle School to perform it.
“Just talking about that now brings a smile to my face, because it was a real proud moment,” said Jéan P. “I didn’t even know my potential until I did it, which is so crazy. From that point on I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”
Jéan Pierre Johnson Jr. was born March 6, 1990 to Jéan Pierre Johnson Sr. and Sherrie Monroe. When he was 6 years old his father was shot over a fight at a club, leaving his mother to raise him and his younger sister Jéantia. It was around this time that his uncle Jerry Monroe, a rap artist who had almost signed to Universal Records under the moniker G.A.T. (Gifted and Talented), helped him to write his first 16 bars.
Not everyone was supportive of Jéan’s new hobby. His very strict and religious stepfather, Chris Brown, saw it only as a distraction. “He had us in church five days a week,” said Jéan P. “My dad just wanted me to stick to my books and stay in school, but I used to stay up listening to old school hip-hop and writing my raps when I was supposed to be in bed. That’s kind of where it started. It was my first gift and I wanted to keep doing it.”
Despite the ups and downs that he had with his stepfather, he now understands why he would tell him: “You’ll be thankful for this one day.”
“Now I’m kind of grounded in things,” said Jéan P. “I’m not easily influenced. I get that from my stepdad because he always taught me not to be a follower, but to be a leader. You can have fun, but don’t be like everyone else. I apply that to my music now. Everyone is always telling me ‘Jéan that’s cool, but you gotta mix it up and make a club banger.’ But I don’t want to do that because everyone is doing that.”
Jéan’s mother wasn’t as anti-rap as his stepfather. “My mom liked my writing. She liked the fact that I was a writer, because that’s where my heart’s really at.” Sherrie lost her battle with cancer in 2005, leaving Jéan orphaned at the age of 15. Because his stepfather didn’t have custody, Jéan and his sister went to live with his grandmother, who he refers to as his "other mother."
His mother’s passing provided plenty of material for his early raps, but he finally got to the point were he could no longer drown in his sorrows. “Losing my mom in a way was cool because I started getting closer to hip-hop,” said Jéan P. “Hip-hop was my mom. That was my comfort. I got to the point where I was like, 'I got to stop writing songs about my mom, I got to start trying to expand.'”
Expand he did. When he came to Ohio University he found a family inHip-Hop Congress, an organization that uses the culture of hip-hop to inspire young people to get involved in social action, community service and cultural creativity.
“When I first joined, there were a lot of older members talking about MCs vs. rappers,” said Jéan P. “One of them brought up a good point: rappers seem more mainstream and manufactured. Anyone can be a rapper, but an MC is someone who can control and move a whole crowd--perform a set and come up with rhymes. Being an MC stands for many different things and not everybody can do that.” From that point on Jéan was known as Jéan P the MC, but don’t call him a socially conscious rapper.
“Yeah I’m a conscious rapper. I’m alive," said Jéan P. “Why can’t I be called an MC? ‘Conscious rapper’ puts us in a box and ‘real hip-hop’ puts us in a box. Regardless of what they’re talking about, if you got a mic and you’re rapping, it’s hip-hop."
A very sincere and incredibly humble individual, Jéan P surrounds himself with people who will support him and always be honest. Russell Morrow, an Ohio University alum and grad student, has been by his side since freshman year and knows just how much Jéan has grown over the past four years.
“His drive, motivation and meaning behind his music have always been the same,” said Morrow. “He's always pushed himself to make good music with a good message. I think he learned to utilize criticism and bad experiences and turn them into positives. Freshman year, he was a little stubborn and hardheaded. He didn't really listen to suggestions from other people. But that has changed a lot, and that’s reflected in how his life and music have progressed.”
One of the major changes in Jéan P’s life was the birth of his son, Amir Coron Johnson, in 2010. He was only 20 at the time. “It definitely wasn’t easy and it was unplanned," said Jéan P. “It was a motivator. It was a gift and something I’ll never forget.”
Christopher Summers, a.k.a. DJ iShine, partnered with Jéan P while at Ohio University to work on his label 1Side Music. The two had been introduced by a mutual friend in 2008, and quickly bonded over rap.
“He and I are good friends and even though things change over the years, we still got each other’s backs,” said Summers. “He has always been real to me as I have to him. I hope in the future of his music career he makes it so he can give Amir the life he never really had as a child.”
Jéan P is gradually working his way to stardom. Over the course of his music career, the MC has released 11 mixtapes, won the Battle of the Emcees to open for Big K.R.I.T, Stalley and Dom Kennedy, performed at countless venues including 10fest and has been featured on MTV’s Rap Fix.
His most recent collaboration was with beat maker and producer Lakim, after being introduced to his music by a friend who recorded a beat with Lakim.
“I sent Lakim my music and he sent me a batch of beats and I liked all of them so much that I rapped over all of them and sent them back,” said Jéan P. “He was like ‘I give my beats to a lot of people but they don’t really do them justice like you did.' One thing led to another and we decided to do a project together. We called the album Opposites Attract because we come from two different places--he’s a producer and I’m an MC. We’d never met each other in person and we were a duo.”
On Feb. 8, Jéan P and Lakim met for the first time and signed a distribution deal with Columbus record label Polar Entertainment under the name Opposites Attract. The deal will allow for their music to be featured in places like iTunes and Amazon.com.
“It feels like all the hard work is paying off, but it also feels like there’s a lot of work to begin,” said Jéan P. “I’m only 22, so I got time to make a name for myself. I haven’t sold my soul to play with the Jonas Brothers yet.”
