Ja Rule: rap star rules hearts & charts - Jeffrey Atkins

Ebony, April, 2002 by Zondra Hughes

ALMOST overnight, music fans around the world were bombarded with the sights and sounds of Ja Rule. The 25-year-old rap artist with devilish eyes, a 5-foot-6 muscled frame, deep, forceful, voice (think Barry White with a perpetual sore throat) and an irresistible pout stormed the recording industry with an audacity that would shame Napoleon. And his message is clear: Ja Rule is on top of the world, and plans to stay there for a while.

Ja Rule emerged from obscurity in 1998 when he rapped a few lyrics on Jay-Z's single, "Can I Get A ..." In 1999, he released his debut album, Venni Vetti Vecci (his version of the Latin quote "I came, I saw, I conquered") and it went platinum. Hell-bent on not being dismissed as a one-hit-wonder, Ja Rule released his sophomore album later that year, Rule 3:36. (The title was influenced by John 3:16 in the Bible, and he added some rules of his own.) The rapper was a headliner in Del Jam's "Hard Knock Life" tour, the highest-grossing rap tour in history, and his latest release, Pain is Love, entered the charts at No. 1 and is still going strong.

Most evident of Ja Rule's power status, according to industry insiders, is his ability to single-handedly get Jennifer Lopez back into the good graces of some in the hip-hop community via their flirty collaboration on the hit single, "I'm Real," which shot up the charts. The two joined forces again on the remix of Lopez's latest single, "Ain't It Funny."

Ja Rule's commercial success reaches far beyond the music studio. He quickly became a pitchman for Calvin Klein and Coca-Cola and soon began popping up in big-budget films. He's teaming up with Vin Diesel in the film Riddick, the sequel to the sci-fi thriller Pitch Black, and his brief stint in last summer's hit movie The Fast & the Furious earned Ja Rule a plum role in the upcoming sequel.

Those who believe Ja Rule enjoyed a fast and furious rise to stardom couldn't be further from the truth. It took seven years of struggle for Jeffrey Atkins, the poverty-stricken teen from Hollis, Queens, to get the recognition and financial reward he so sorely craved.

In the early '90s the optimistic 18-year-old says he experienced some of the worst shenanigans the music industry has to offer. He signed a "damning" contract with a recording company "just to get my foot in the door." That deal cost him his publishing rights to an album that was never released, and it stalled a lucrative move to Def Jam records.

"When you're young and you get into this industry, you just see bright lights and big stars," he tells EBONY. "They hit you with this little check and you think, `I'm going to make hit records; I'm going to be in the videos; I'm going to be the [man].' And when it doesn't all fall into place, that's when you get a real slap of reality, that this is the real world and some people make it, and some don't."

Finally, Ja Rule was released from the bad deal and is now part of Def Jam. It was patience, he says, that paved his way to the top.

"Things were just difficult at that time, but, as they say, patience is a virtue."

Patience and tenacity are two of the many virtues young Jeffrey Atkins learned at his mother's knee. Debra Atkins, a health care worker, taught her only son every Black mother's golden rule: Self-doubt kills your will and a lack of will kills the angel of opportunity.

The Atkins household may have been lacking in finances, but between mom and "grandmom" Ja Rule says he received plenty of rich, warm, childhood memories.

"When I was little, my mom and grandmom did little things for me that always made me feel like we were doing well financially," he says. "Black people have a knack for that, making bad times feel good. They gave me a lot of strength."

Branded the "sensitive thug" by many fans, Ja Rule isn't shy about recording his views on relationships and women--causing quite a stir among his female fans. Add his street attitude and his bad-boy-capable-of-showing-love demeanor to the equation, and you have a bona fide sex symbol--a label Ja Rule refuses to wear.

"I didn't know I was a major sex symbol. I know I'm a husband," he says playfully. "I don't see [the fans' reaction] as that. I see it as love from the people, just an appreciation of the music and what I'm doing. Women are a little different with it, but I still look at it like that's a love for what I'm doing."

If Ja Rule had his way, ladies, he would much rather keep his shirt on (he humorously blames the media for pressuring him to show his pecs) and keep the focus on his lyrics. "I can be sexy--but if I wasn't making good music, it wouldn't make too much of a difference," he says, adding, "I don't think about stuff like that; my wife thinks about that more than I do."

The fans' relentless appreciation and the joy that comes from creating hit music keeps Ja Rule going.

"It is so refreshing to create something new that nobody has ever seen or has ever heard before," he explains excitedly. "I've been wanting to create for so long, and now I have the opportunity to do these things--and not just music, in other facets of entertainment as well. I really love creating. I get up singing tunes all around the house, and my wife can't take it, it drives her crazy."