This past summer, seasoned Los Angeles rapper Jay Rock, whose legal name is Johnny Reed McKinzie, celebrated the fifth anniversary of his third studio album, Redemption, a widely-recognized magnum opus performance. Consisting of club bangers like “Tap Out” (feat. Jeremih) and its lead single “WIN,” as well as bread-and-butter storytelling cuts like “ES Tales” and “OSOM” (feat. J. Cole), Redemption’s conciseness and broad appeal equated to the most commercial success McKinzie had ever received. Finally, though, after a grueling five-year wait for fans, he’s now reaching for his metaphorical oven mitts, preparing to dish up his newest creation.
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While guaranteeing that his upcoming album will arrive before we turn the calendar to 2024, McKinzie still has yet to give the LP a title, cover art, track list, or release date, as of this conversation in mid-September. But as he divulges information about the project, which he says is 92% done at the moment, the 38-year-old who grew up in the Watts neighborhood of L.A. is confident that he has only improved upon his already reliable recipe in the last five years.
“The new [album] is just really showing the growth and showing the elevation. You only get better with time,” McKinzie tells American Songwriter. “With this album, I just want to basically reinvent myself… I always feel like I get better every time I drop something. I feel like it just gets better and better, man. It’s hard to explain.”
Like many of hip-hop’s most stimulating and thoughtful acts throughout the genre’s history, McKinzie feels it’s important to let life experiences guide his art, rather than rushing into releases. While this has contributed to his long hiatus, it will also make for another captivating full-length effort, he says.
But this doesn’t mean he took any time away from rapping. On the contrary, McKinzie didn’t skip a beat after Redemption arrived, holding himself to a standard of excellence unmatched by many.
“To be honest, I really didn’t take no time off,” he says. “Right after Redemption, I was back in the studio. I was back working. I just came to grips with myself like, ‘I just gotta keep going hard. I can’t slack off.’ So, I never stopped making music. But you know, in the meantime, [I was] still living life and taking care of responsibilities and things of that nature. But I’m always in the studio, I got my own setup at my home. So whenever I get ideas going, I’m either at the house or I’m at the studio. I’m always working.”
In between these constant studio sessions, McKinzie had a handful of prestigious honors bestowed upon him. First was the Grammy award he took home in 2019 for “King’s Dead” (which was shared with Anderson .Paak’s “Bubblin”), a now multi-platinum song featuring Atlanta trap-rapper Future and McKinzie’s at-the-time fellow Top Dawg Entertainment label-mate Kendrick Lamar. Though the song originally appeared on the soundtrack for the 2018 Marvel film Black Panther, which was orchestrated by Lamar, “King’s Dead” would also land on Redemption as the eighth track, just a few months after it peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Also in 2019, McKinzie would receive the key to Watts, being recognized for the “philanthropic contributions he has made back to his community over the years and the example he has set for the younger generations to come,” according to a press release.
“I still can’t believe that. It’s like how I won a Grammy. I never thought in a million years that my city would give me a key,” he shares. “It just let me know that I’m doing something right as far as motivating and inspiring these young kids to do something positive. Especially coming from where I come from, a lot of people ain’t promised to make it out the projects, you know what I’m saying? So, for me to get a key to the city, it’s just showing inspiration to these kids and letting them know that they could do some real good in their life.”
More than three years after these career-defining achievements, McKinzie finally resurfaced with a new single in June of 2023. Dubbed “Eastside,” and including a feature from TDE signee Kal Banx, who also produced the track, the song sees McKinzie proudly rep his side of town that “does the most,” aided by a ferocious beat with haunting sirens sprinkled all throughout.
Eastside got that dope, bitch, I’m servin’ it
Bent’ GT, I’m swervin’ it
Tell me what’s the word, lil’ bitch?
Fuck what you heard and shit
Hood tat’ on me permanent
– Jay Rock on “Eastside”
Some four weeks later, McKinzie would follow up “Eastside” with another promotional single titled “Too Fast (Pull Over),” which contained guest appearances from the unlikely duo of soulful R&B rapper Anderson .Paak and the cutthroat, booty-shaking phenom Latto. Produced by iconic instrumentalist Mustard, “Too Fast (Pull Over)” was actually a gift from .Paak to McKinzie, one that sees a tremendous amount of chemistry from an incredibly serendipitous trio.
“Big shoutout to Anderson .Paak, man, that’s my dude,” McKinzie says. “A few years ago, we won a Grammy together, so we’ve always been fans of each other’s music, and every time we ran into each other, we used to be like, ‘Man, we gotta do something. We gotta get it in.’ So one day I was at a studio called the Mixing Room [in Los Angeles] and I just so happened to hit him up like, ‘Man I’m in here working, pull up.’ And he pulled up. We did a few records together that are phenomenal. We was just vibing, and he was like, ‘Man, I got this record from Mustard I think you’ll sound dope on.’ So he let me hear it and it was [“Too Fast (Pull Over)”]. I was like, ‘Wow, this is a hit. This is summertime right here man.’ I just jumped on it real quick, did my verse, and did what I did.
“And so I was just really sitting on the record for like, a week or two and I just texted him and said, ‘Man, how would you feel if I put this record on my project?’ And he’s like, ‘For real? Okay, I think it’d sound dope on your project as well. Let me tap in with Mustard,’” he continues. “And when he tapped in with Mustard, everything was a go.”
But, as he noted before, McKinzie took his sweet ol’ time with the album-making process, leading .Paak to believe he had abandoned the song. This is where Latto comes into the picture.
“I was sitting on the record for, I want to say, like a year or so,” McKinzie reveals. “And by the time I was finna start putting the record out, I hit him and said, ‘Yeah, man I’m trying to get the files and things of that nature.’ He was like, ‘Oh man I thought you forgot about the record.’ I was like, ‘Nah, man, I’m ready to go!’ Then he was like, ‘Man, I got Latto on it now.’ I was like, ‘Wow!’ And he let me hear the verse and I said, ‘Yeah man this is crazy.’ So everything was still all good to go. He reached out to Latto and her people, and she did the verse.”
I ain’t never seen an ass like that, stomach on snatch
Swinging 1942 with a baseball bat
I send ’em home runnin’
The brain ain’t grade A, I don’t know nothin’
N****s talkin’ heavy, this a feather on my wing
VVS diamond, Eastside Johnny, I’m him
-Jay Rock on “Too Fast (Pull Over)”
Adding even more insight about “Too Fast (Pull Over)” and “Eastside,” McKinzie stresses how these singles should not be taken for granted, considering how long and hard he reflects on songs before putting them out.
“I feel like I don’t want to just drop anything. Because you could drop something today, and people forget about it tomorrow, you know?” he says. “I want my music to stick to people’s ribs and live with them for a while. Every time I’d get feedback from Redemption, a lot of people were like, ‘Man, that’s a classic album. No skips.’ So I want to be able to deliver that again and more with this album. I’m always trying to beat myself. I just try to go hard and be better than I was the last time.”
In fact, while crafting the yet-to-be-named LP, McKinzie said there were times that he and members of his team did not see eye to eye on some songs, lyrics, and ideas. His response to this, not only now but throughout his career, is to put these disputes to a vote, letting the majority rule on most occasions.
“There were a lot of records that I wanted to drop quick, fast. But I always do a vote when I’ll be around my team,” he shares. “If it’s something that’s off or something that’s wrong, [they] let me know. It’s this model that I always loved using because I’ve been using it for so long. If I got shit, boogers, and bullshit on my T-shirt, and I don’t see it, and you see it before I walk out the house and don’t say nothin’ to me, then, you know what I mean? Sometimes, you might think we’re fresh, but there could be little knickknacks that I probably don’t see but somebody else can see and let me know. So that’s what I do with my music. I always come around my team. I need honest opinions. I don’t deal with egos. I’m always open to people’s opinions and ideas because that’s what makes good music. Sometimes I might not know everything.”
On top of these shining collaborations with Latto, .Paak, and Banx, McKinzie plans to add even more star power to his eventual album’s full track list, similar to how Redemption boasted marquee appearances from the aforementioned Lamar, Future, J. Cole, and Jeremih, as well as SZA and Detroit rapper Tee Grizzley. However, at the time we spoke with McKinzie, he wasn’t ready to share details.
“I don’t want to give it up just yet, but I got a few big names on the album, fo sho,” he says. “That’s why I’ve been quiet as a church mouse.”
Even though McKinzie stands firm in the approaches he feels are fool-proof, he also knows that the hip-hop landscape is ever-evolving and that many trends have come and gone in the half-decade he’s been away. Hoping to factor that into his creative process, but still stay true to himself at the same time, Watts feels like the impending project finds a perfect balance.
“The game has shifted for sure, the rap game has shifted,” he admits. “So you know, I’m moving along with the wave, but I also just do me. I try not to be nobody else but me. I just try to be me. I try to be Jay Rock as much as possible. Because that’s what people loved when I first came out. So that’s the person I want to be when I leave the game.”
Speaking of “when he first came out,” 2023 marks 12 years since McKinzie dropped his debut album with TDE, titled Follow Me Home, which set the brash, yet vulnerable tone for every subsequent tape he released. Still, even with a dozen years in the industry under his belt, McKinzie’s nerves still kick in at this stage of his album’s rollout. More than just another batch of songs to deliver, his forthcoming effort is a reminder of all he’s accomplished as an artist and a re-enforcer of all the strides he has made along the way.
“It feels like dropping the first album, man,” McKinzie says. “You get excited. You feel the pressure. You get the little butterflies. You’re anxious. You’re trying to see what it’s gonna do. But it’s always the same feeling every time I drop an album. It’s that same feeling from when I dropped the first one.”
Photos by John Jay /Courtesy Top Dawg Entertainment
