One could say that it was meant to be how Jelly Roll got his name. The man born Jason Bradley DeFord on December 4, 1984, has become one of the fastest-rising stars in rap and country music. After pounding the pavement in his native Nashville as a rapper, Jelly Roll crossed over into country music with his hit single “Son of a Sinner.” It’s not every day you encounter a rapper-turned-country star who’s named after a classic dessert—so how did he get the name Jelly Roll?
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Meaning Behind the Band Name
The origins date back to DeFord’s upbringing in Antioch, Tennessee, just outside of Nashville. His mother came up with Jelly Roll as a nickname that he later used to his advantage.
“My mother named me that whenever I was a little chubby kid,” Jelly Roll explained on The Bobby Bones Show about the name his mother called him when he was young. “Been fat my whole life. I spent the next 30 years trying to grow into the name, I think I’ve done it,” he jokes. “I obviously look the part…It just stuck.” But that’s not the only childhood connection to the name. One of his classmates in high school, who went by the nickname One-Arm Clay, started calling him Jelly Roll without knowing that’s what his mother called him at home.
“One Arm Clay was like, We should call you Jelly Roll,’ I’m One Arm Clay and you’ll be Jelly Roll,'” the singer recalls. “I was like ‘My mama calls me Jelly Roll.’ Then once the high school starts calling you something, that’s the kit and caboodle.”
DeFord started writing songs when he was around the age of seven. “In the words of Brantley Gilbert, I didn’t know I could sing, but I knew I could talk fast,’” he said. “So I wrote a lot of raps.” His mother struggled with addiction and mental health when he was growing up, but music provided a healing effect, so much so that the future star wanted to make music that had the same impact. “She would listen to music and it would change everything,” he reflects. “I just remember thinking, ‘I want to make music that makes people feel like this music makes my mother feel.’”
To date, Jelly Roll has released several albums in collaboration with fellow regional rappers, including Struggle Jennings and Lil Wyte. He released his debut country album, Whitsitt Chapel, in June 2023 which topped both the Billboard Top Rock Albums and Top Independent Albums, as well as No. 2 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart and No. 3 on the all-genre Billboard 200.
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