“Writing Without Reading Is Lifting Without Eating” – An MM Exclusive With mynameisntjmack

Raw, sensitive, and with his heart on his sleeve, mynameisntjmack has a unique skill set that makes him an outstanding prospect in Rap and Hip-Hop. From a cloistered existence in Pennsylvania to discovering a love for music during his time in Virginia and now Los Angeles, this is an artist who has an innate ability for lyricism and unflinching storytelling, as well as an understanding of what sonic backdrops suit him.

In the build up to the release of his latest project, ‘BOOKMARK 2’, I caught up with him to discuss his musical background, his struggles with addiction, and how literature plays a part in his writing process:

Virginia has a rich musical history. How did you find growing up there and how did that history rub off on you?

It’s funny, because I moved to Virginia when I was in the third grade and it influenced my music heavily, because before that, I had moved from the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania, and it was pretty much just like Country music there. I was like a young black kid moving to Virginia with such a rich musical history, specifically within Hip Hop and R&B, and I had only ever heard Country music based off of where I had moved from. It was very much environmentally that I started to pick up on it all.

Coming from Pennsylvania then you might not have had the biggest musical background, but when did you first become interested in music?

I would say I got into listening to music through the Michael Jackson ‘HIStory – Past, Present And Future’ album that my mom had in the car. In terms of making music, the first time I ever made music was when my parents heard me listening to Odd Future for the first time, and they didn’t like it.  They were a very strict religious group of people, so they said, “okay, here, if you’re gonna listen to this music, it needs to be clean.”

I cried and I tried to tell them that Odd Future don’t make clean songs, but they told me I was going to have to figure it out. I went on Audacity and turned down the curse words because I didn’t know how to make a clean edit. I would literally create silence on the track and then the music would come back. I wasn’t even really trying to make my own music, more so I just wanted to be able to listen to other people’s.

Who would you say are your other early influences or inspirations?

I like a lot of random other bits and pieces of music that weren’t necessarily tied to an area or a genre, because my parents weren’t big music listeners. A lot of my Rock music influence comes from songs I played on Guitar Hero, and a lot of my early Indie/Alternative references are from girls that I talked to, because I didn’t listen to that genre of music. It was really just Country music, and then got into Hip Hop and R&B when I moved to Virginia. 

In terms of making music, I’m like a sponge, and nowadays I find I can’t listen to a lot of Tyler and Earl and Vince Staples, because I end up wanting to make that type of music. So now it’s a lot of Faye Webster and like Thee Sacred Souls and stuff like that.

I want to talk about the origin of your name as well. Where does mynameisntjmack come from?

So I started rapping because the bravest kid in my high school who started rapping when he was 15 years old heard me rapping at a party and was like, “Hey, I think you could do this too.”  But it was at a time where you got made fun of for being a rapper in high school – the term ‘SoundCloud rapper’ was very much a derogatory term. I was always too afraid to do it, but I would write music down. 

It wasn’t until I went to college that I started making music under the name JMack, but then everyone would call me that instead of my actual name, Jonathan. I changed my Instagram name to mynameisntjmack and it was just a natural progression from there. I always introduce myself as Jonathan but everyone still calls me JMack.

Your new project is coming out, ‘BOOKMARK 2’. What is the continuation from the first ‘BOOKMARK’ project and how do you think you have evolved as an artist since then?

I love that question. BOOKMARK and the series as a whole – they’re meant to be stopping point projects. I was an English major in school, and a lot of the larger albums have a literary background, or, like a larger, grandiose theme that’s kind of based in literature. These projects are stopping points. What do you do when you reach a bookmark? Are you going to reflect on that last chapter? Or are you going to move forward? 

They’re much more personal, less grandiose projects that really do focus more on me in the moment. In terms of what people can expect on it, the songs are much more recent. My last couple of projects have been, like, years of music compiled together, whereas this is put together over the last six months.

At the start you kind of the tape you kind of touch on how you navigate fame. Being based in LA now instead of Virginia, how do the two locations differ?

I would say my level of comfortability with life in general. It’s easy to make music and feel like you’re doing the thing when you’re in your mother’s house smoking weed, and you make one song every couple of days with your friend when he’s not working. That’s just kind of what you do, but that’s not like the level of work ethic and the level of output that you need to have to be able to consistently improve and be able to do the thing at a high level.

Moving out to Los Angeles was to get me out of my comfort zone in a place where it’s like, okay, now I’m working 45 hours a week and sleeping on the floor, and I’m working at the CVS. Every waking moment that I have where I’m not working this dead end job, I have to be making music, and I have to be making more songs and improving because I’m around people who are already better than me and already working at that clip. LA was just more so, like, trying to put myself in a place to work harder.

Is that something you prefer or is it more of a necessity for you?

I definitely prefer it. I tell people that I sell boats where the water is at. I could sell boats in land locked Kansas and people could find water, but I had to be in Los Angeles because of the resources. The water is the videographers, the producers, the live musicians, the engineers, the people who really make the thing go.  You can find those people in other places, but the drive is different in Los Angeles, and it’s different when you’re in a community of people making a living off of the thing, as opposed to aspiring to do that. Much love to the places that I come from and the places that I’m speaking on, but it’s just really industry specific, and it’s weird to be in a place where there’s solely entertainment.

You’re also very vulnerable across the project and that’s something that shines through and sets you apart from others. I wanted to touch on the track ‘American Spirit’ which delves into addiction and isolation. How have those things affected you and how are you navigating them now?

I think that that’s kind of what’s made me who I am, from an empathy standpoint, and just a way of approaching life. It kind of has led to the outlook on the music and stuff like that – being vulnerable and talking about these things is kind of what has led to better music in general.  I feel like when you first start rapping, you start with the real, big grand, I’m that dude type of music, but that only lasts for so long. Talking about myself has allowed for a personal level of longevity. It’s never gonna end, because I’m never going to be done talking about what I’m going through. 

American Spirit is a real example of the themes of self isolation and trying to get more vulnerable.  You can make a song about how nobody is around, and this that and the third but what are you turning towards? For me, it happened to be the spliffs that I rolled with American Spirit tobacco.

You also had a stint in rehab a few years ago. Can you talk about that time period and how it has impacted you since?

For me, it’s mainly an empathy thing and an outlook thing. I think the most impactful experience I had in rehab was talking to people that were there not for the substance that they initially got there for, but for the fact that they had to be given something to get off of it, like Suboxone, for people who were trying to get past opioid addiction, and looking at people and realizing that there’s more layers to the story than one might expect, and everybody has different experiences.

I was relating to 65 year old women who were stealing vanilla bottles off the shelf to be able to get the extract alcohol out of it, and people who were there because they were lifelong heroin addicts, and then me, somebody that just kind of crashed out selling and doing drugs in college.  I think that overall rehab opened my eyes to vulnerability being a gateway to music and being able to impact more people than I had previously thought.

Do you kind of view these projects as a therapeutic process?

I definitely did at a certain point, but then I started to be a little bit more self analytical. I listen to these songs upwards of 1000 times before they come out, so by the time they do come out, I feel like it really is going to be kind of like a therapy for others, and the therapy for me is in the making of the music.

Across your career you’ve worked with a number of different artists from Mick Jenkins to Trevor Spitta. One of your close collaborators though is Tommy Richman who had a massive year last year. Does his success spur you on to find that for yourself?

Yeah, I mean that’s my damn near blood brother at this point, for real. We have been through so much together, and I would say that he inspires me more as a person, and the fact that he’s kind of remained the same through all of this and also kept up that insane work ethic that he has despite all this. He pushes me to get outside of myself and recognize that if your best friend can go through all of this and continue to be the same person and work just as hard as he does, that’s the bare minimum that you can do. My relationship with him is just as much family as it is competitive as it is an inspiration.

We’ve already spoken about your vulnerability but your word play also is very much apparent on this project. What do you think is your biggest asset as a rapper?

Aside from the vulnerability, I would say it is just like the English background and just like the bag of vocabulary, just from being a reader.  Writing without reading is lifting without eating. I was always a big book nerd, and I think that would be the biggest asset.

In terms of taking inspiration from reading, are there any books in particular that have stayed with you?

I would say my first project that was really literary based was the LORDS OF SOUNDS AND LESSER THINGS. It’s based on a quote from Zora Neale Hurston’s ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God’. I’m really into a lot of black southern literature, post slavery and the civil rights movement, things of that nature. I was an English major at the University of Virginia, so that meant a lot of old school ethical English texts and sonnets and Shakespeare. The Odyssey, The Iliad, The Aeneid and stuff like that too. Classic literature has also framed a lot of how I feel and go about song structure and things of that nature.

You’re in the midst of your tour right now and heading over to Europe soon. How does it feel to be a global artist?

Dude, I love it. I used to be so anxious before shows, and now I’m trying to do a better job about getting past it. It’s crazy that the music has taken us to the places that it’s taken us, and I’ve never left the country before, so this is going to be my first time abroad. I’m excited to experience what I’ve heard my whole life as a music fan, that the European audiences have a different affinity for music.

Just finally, with your new project arriving, what are your goals for the rest of the year and further ahead?

I would say goals for the end of this year are to finish strong, finish out the tour, and hopefully add more legs on to it, because shows continue to sell out. I also want to keep up the output and stuff like that. We have this project and then I’d say, like another two, two and a half hours of music in the vault that we need to cut down and make that next real big project out of. So really, what I’m looking forward to is just finding ways to keep it going and to continue to improve▉

BOOKMARK 2 is out now across all platforms.