Jerzee

Jerzee THA “Icon”

“What you looking at is a man before his reign/ Before the day that they say KING before his name”-- Jerzee on (Lyrical Workout 2005)

Sean Virgil aka Jerzee, was born in Montreal in July 1983. After two years living in his city of birth his single mother, a hard working Guyanese nurse, picked up and moved to America as it presented better opportunities at the time. “I lived in Brooklyn, New York at first, and it was crazy out there all that B-Boy stuff ya’ll seen on TV. of the 80’s, you know breaking on street corners, dudes battle ‘rappin’ in ciphers, yo its real and it was out there man” says Jerzee “Like I would be walking to kindergarten looking at these guys thinking, damn I wish I could just skip school and just do this all day”. But his NY experience didn’t last too long, at the age of five, young Jerzee was moved from Brooklyn to the place that would really reap his burgeoning talent. “East Orange is my heart piece man” Jerzee reminisces “I love E.O.” East Orange, New Jersey, also known as “Brick City” (because of the blocks and blocks of project buildings) was also home to such other well known artists such as The Fugees, Redman, and Naughty by Nature. “Yo man just knowing I lived in the same city these guys came up in, it was an inspiration to me , I mean I would see Vinny from Naughty by Nature all the time drive down my block in his truck. Just knowing this guy toured the world and got to live that life, it had me wanting to really make something of myself real bad.” So he did just that starting his own break-dance crew at the age of eight. His group became well known around Jersey inner cities and was always on set at dances, outside concerts and block parties. It was in 1994 that a chance meeting with Redman, while dancing at a block party got him into writing rhymes. “We was just doing our thing when me and my boy P-nut just started battle rapping for fun, we would do that sometimes just messing around nothing serious, you know.” But what Redman saw in the young’n was more than serious, “ We heard Redman was supposed to be there, but people talked a lot back then, so we thought nothing of it, but he was there, and he came up to us with like two other guys and was like, “Can I get in this lil man”? Redman then spit side to side with the youngsters playing it up for the party goers. “Best experience of my life, definitely one of em for sure, he rapped for a little bit then he told us he had to leave, but before he did he told me to keep spitting, so I did, I was like I’m gonna do this too, and I’m gonna do it GOOD”!

“Now I said I was ready for whatever didn’t I? / But damn I be wishing that my mother didn’t die”—Jerzee on (Last Night 2005)

Flash six years forward to the year 2000. Jerzee is age seventeen and is now a full fledged aspiring recording artist. “Everybody in my neighborhood knew me as ‘Pipedream’ ain’t nobody think I was gonna make it” Jerz remembers “Granted most people told me I was good and I did sell tapes out of my backpack, but they just didn’t think that you could get that kinda shine in the ghetto, saying that it was rare” And for the most part it seemed that everyone else was right about his dream, that it was just that, a DREAM and nothing more. “I was always spitting too man, talent shows, school hallways, outside radio stations(including legendary powerhouse station Hot 97, NY), but nothing was happening, I was getting real discouraged” he continues “ I was just about ready to be like maybe its me man, maybe I ain’t as good as these other cats, maybe this ain’t for me”. But the perseverance he needed came in the form of a “pep talk” from his best friend. “ My mother has always been my rock, and my strength she taught me everything man from how to read to how to fight, to how to court a real woman, she was my mother and father at the same time , I will always represent her”. His mother told him to stare adversity in its eye and to charge in the face of fear, she told him if he quit what he loved so much without a just cause, then he was a coward, she also told him his music was great and that it spoke true, and that one day it would bring him the world. “She told me that, she said those words to me, kna’mean”? “After that it was on man I was gonna be a one man army for my moms yo, I told her one day I’m a get you out of this hood, we ain’t gonna live like this no more”. “I mean my mother had eight of us, and we was struggling man I didn’t want that for her, I always felt she deserved better”. So newly inspired, he went back to the lab with the new composition book his mother presented him with, and he wrote his life into music. Things were just starting to look up for the teenage musician when disaster struck. On December 2nd 2000, young Jerzee’s mother was killed in a car accident. “I ….can’t even tell you what kind of pain that is…she didn’t ….she didn’t go the way I thought she would man, it wasn’t glorious,