Almost Famous: Jay Rock

Meet the Robin Hood of west coast rap.

Don’t confuse rapper Jay Rock with J Rock, the Rick Ross producer. Or J.Rocc, the Los Angeles DJ. Or Jayrock, the JavaScript tool. “What!? I’m the only Jay Rock I know,” the 22-year-old from the Watts section of L.A. says.

He’s the only Jay Rock that matters in Nickerson Gardens, the largest government projects west of the Mississippi and home to the notorious Bounty Hunter Bloods. Jay was born and raised there and hasn’t moved. Recently, he handed out Thanksgiving turkeys and paid $4,000 in rent for a neighbor with lupus. “Everyone in Nickerson Gardens is my family,” he says.

Rock’s gravelly style evokes 2Pac’s Thug Life and the bouncing 6-4’s of The Chronic. And he claims a lineage that dates back to Dr. Dre and his former protégé The Game, whom Rock met in 2004 at a Torrance shopping mall. “It wasn’t a battle, but I rapped to him and he rapped a verse to me, and we kept in touch,” Rock says. In 2007, the Game put Rock on a mixtape, then coproduced and guested on the title track of Jay’s new LP. Rock’s true mentor, though, is his Watts neighbor, a big-brother figure named Dude Dawg. “When he heard my mixtapes, he locked me in the studio like I was in jail,” Rock says. Dude’s the one still keeping Jay true to his roots. “I could have a hundred million dollars, man, and I’d still be in the projects,” Rock says. “But I am trying to move my mom out.”