The Triumph of JMNOP

NYC area indie hip-hop fans may be familiar with JMNOP (pronounced Jay Muh Nop) from back when he was going by J.Monopoly, and tearing up stages as a member of O.I.S.D. (Operation Industry Shut Down). The five man crew became known for their high energy live shows in the late ‘00s and early ‘10s.

A lot has gone on, however, since those rowdy years.

While O.I.S.D. has remained tight as a crew over the past decade-plus, they’ve also all branched out to work on other projects. At the end of 2020, JMNOP finally added his own to the mix, releasing his first solo album, The Longing.

For those who knew him before, he says, “They’re gonna hear changes.”

“You can still hear JMNOP witty, just really into lyric craft,” he assures, “but it’s more vulnerable.”

He continued, adding, “It’s a different style. O.I.S.D., we did a lot of fun stuff. We were pretty much, to many people, the life of the party, but with this, for me, it’s more about me tapping into being vulnerable with how I feel.”

The Longing, he explains, is a project that’s “nostalgia based, but there are different emotions. There’s love, there’s depression, there’s even anxiety, and just determination. It’s definitely different from anything I’ve ever done.”

Describing The Longing as a reintroduction of sorts, he states, “This is MNOP grown up.”

The long road to The Longing 

To understand where The Longing originates, one must rewind to 2014, when JMNOP lost his mother, and put a number of things on the back burner.

“I stepped away,” he remembers, “I was still creating, and what not, but I just … I went away for a bit. I retreated. I kept to myself, and I didn’t know what I was gonna talk about, or how I was gonna approach it.”

In 2015, while in this reclusive state, he started going through some old beats his longtime friend Chin Beats had sent him over the years. Chin was part of a crew named The Produce Section which was picked up by Consequence, who is most known for his work with A Tribe Called Quest, and Kanye West. The producer’s beats inspired JMNOP to get back into the groove of recording.

“I just had a bunch of these old Chin beats lying around that I wanted to write to, that I wanted to use for years,” JMNOP says, “and I never had the time to use them until I started writing this project.”

A trio of setbacks

If the creation of The Longing had been easy, JMNOP would’ve released it five years ago, but “easy” simply wasn’t the path JMNOP would walk down.

For starters, JMNOP is a perfectionist, which is a quality that can oftentimes be more of a curse than a gift. “It’s like a never-ending cycle,” he explains, “You get caught up in the hamster wheel of perfection.”

Perfectionism led to a secondary issue for the NY native – self-doubt. He describes the feeling as, “That voice in your head always saying, ‘Hey, this could be better,’ or ‘It’s not enough to compete.’”

With all that swirling around in his head, JMNOP also had to deal with a move out of New York City. The move was one that turned sour. “I was in a relationship I shouldn’t have been in, honestly, that had ran its course,” he explains, “I eventually got out of it, and I just had to rebuild myself, and work my way back up to who I once … not even who I once was, but I just underwent a whole growth period. Long story short, I went through some things in my personal life, and I just felt like I needed to grow.”

JMNOP moved back to NYC, but he notes that after all the events that had happened, “My confidence took a shot.”

While confidence may have been in short supply, it wasn’t non-existent. If he’d completely lacked confidence he wouldn’t have taken the time to put together an at-home studio.

Considering The Longing old news, once the studio was complete he started work on a new project. His mind, however, kept wandering back to the unreleased album.

“For some reason The Longing just kept nagging at me,” he says, “It’s like I can’t move forward unless I put this project out. I can’t do anything else unless this project comes out. I stopped everything else, and I just focused on getting this project done.”

A family affair 

For JMNOP, The Longing turned into something more than an album, it turned into a celebration of family, both his immediate family, and his hip-hop family.

“I think the thing that led me to putting it out at the end of 2020 is that’s the year my mom would’ve turned 50,” he explains, “and the project is sort of me paying homage to her.”

Adding to the family feel of The Longing is that he chose to release it on his father’s birthday (December 28th), and the cover image is a photo taken by JMNOP’s sister on the steps of their mother’s childhood home in Brooklyn.

“It kinda comes full circle,” he says, “I figure, alright, if this is gonna be my first project I might as well do it right.”

Along with his immediate family, JMNOP’s hip-hop family also played a prominent role in The Longing. The album was recorded and engineered by longtime friend Otis Clapp, and O.I.S.D. member Joey Golden, it features guest appearances from both Golden, and O.I.S.D.’s Jonathan UniteUs (Golden and UniteUs also combine to form Tha Joint), and as noted earlier, the beats all came from longtime friend Chin Beats. These are all people JMNOP has at least a decade of history with.

Re-inspired, reinvigorated, and reenergized 

“I’ve spent a lot of time helping others,” JMNOP says, “It feels good to have my own thing.”

“For a long time I wasn’t sure if I could do a project by myself,” he admits, in a slice of candor not typical in a field that normally lives and breathes braggadocio, “I’ve always wanted to, but the fact that I was actually able to put this one together is like, WOW, I did it. Jonny and Joey, they already have whole discographies of music, and this is just me getting started on my first one.”

Despite the many hurdles along the way, JMNOP was likely destined to entertain solo ambitions. “Rapping was the first thing I could do,” he says, “Before I was even tall enough to touch turntables, I was rapping.”

Now, the mic is his once again. “I’m back to rapping, and it feels pretty good.”

The new JMNOP 

When JMNOP thinks back to when he was first making a name for himself in NYC’s indie hip-hop scene, and of how much he’s changed both as an artist, and a person, since then, he says, “My life was a lot different ten, eleven, years ago than it is now. In some ways I was happier. In some ways I was a little more doubtful, or a little more pessimistic, and in some ways I wasn’t as evolved as I am now to talk about the things that I discussed on The Longing.”

With a heck of a lot more experience under his belt, JMNOP shares his hopes for the future, saying, “Life happens, things happen, and I just want to still be able to share myself, and to share my point of view, especially during times like this.”

The Longing is a reintroduction to JMNOP. He’s pleased to meet you, and he’s definitely here to stay.

For more JMNOP, check out The Longing on Bandcamp.