When a recent report came out revealing that the OG Love and Hip Hop was culling its cast list, a few Instagram booty models and SoundCloud rappers cried that their rent payments were now in jeopardy.
But for rapper/songwriter James R, getting cut from the list caused him to breathe a sigh of relief.
“I’m not a fan of reality television,” he said in an exclusive interview with HipHopDX. “There’s a lot of things that I’ve done in the music industry that weren’t featured or focused on in the show. They created this character around me that wasn’t even close to based in reality — I’m not some scumbag or some asshole trying to mack on all these broads. They wanted me to talk in the third person about myself like I’m some playboy. Who does that?”
Throughout the course of our nearly hour-long conversation, James R took the time to dispel a plethora of misconceptions about both himself as an artist and a person, and about the reality show game as a whole.
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Originally asked to be a part of Love and Hip Hop‘s seventh season — an offer he turned down — James R decided to give this past season of the show a test run to give himself a larger-scale musical platform. Though he didn’t get paid much (“trust me — reality stars don’t get paid like that,” he said), he originally thought that he would get exposure for his music outside of his native Brooklyn, NY by being on the hit VH1 show, especially given the breakout success of the Bronx bombshell, Cardi B.
While, initially, he got a bit of exposure thanks to the success of “Hold Up,” he soon found himself pigeonholed as little more than Mariahlynn’s boyfriend and the object of Instagram magnet Sophia Body’s affection.
The critics liked “Hold Up,” but a quick glance at the comments section reveals that he didn’t exactly gain a new set of fans.
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“My time on the show was good in the sense of the fact that now people outside of New York know who I am,” he said. “The problem is, they know me as a character — not as an artist. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t just be myself.”
“Himself” includes an extensive résumé that VH1 was careful to highlight on their official character bio about him. He’s used his good looks to land a modeling job with Sean John, and he’s parlayed his songwriting skills to credits on songs with Jim Jones and Dave East.
He found himself in a bit of legal trouble earlier this year thanks to a jilted record producer, but now, he’s not letting anything or anyone get in the way of finding success as an artist.
“I’m working on some new shit,” he said. “I’ve got a new video and a new song coming out, we’ve started working about 30 stations to get it added to rotation, so I’m doing reasonably well, all things considered. When the show first approached me, they wanted someone who was already made — not someone they had to make. And like I said, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it, because I’m not a fan of reality television, but you do what you have to do, and you take the jobs you have to take, in order to elevate and maintain a certain lifestyle.”
Now that he’s no longer on the roster, however, James R is looking to the future. He’s got another track coming out called “Jose Jose,” he’s working on his King of Hearts clothing line, and he’s focusing on his family.
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“I’m just someone who wants to be respected from the top down,” he said. “Yeah, I’m into myself a little bit — but I have to focus on my career and doing what’s right for me. I just want to love my woman and my daughter…I don’t have time for the rest of the bullshit right now.”
Stay up to date on James R’s updates on Instagram @hellojamesr.
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