Reverend Run’s son Joseph Simmons Jr., or JoJo, is attempting to make a mark on the Hip-Hop scene as one-third of his NYC-based rap group, Team Blackout.
“I’m trying to bring Hip-Hop back,” JoJo told AllHipHop.com. “I feel like Hip-Hop is a bunch of just dance moves.”
Currently in the studio, Simmons, 16, and his fellow group mates began rhyming with each other early on in grade school and decided to make their music stint official.
Simmons, who raps under the alias “Make It Happen,” says he met his group members, “Conscious” from Queens, NYC and “LP” from Hempstead, Long Island, in 7th and 9th grade, and have been working together for the past two years to make an album for fans of real Hip-Hop.
Simmons says he is actively trying to get out from under the shadows of his famous father, Rev. Run of Run-DMC.
He admits, however, that being around his father has been a good training ground for entering the music industry.
“I was on tour with my dad. In London before performing with my dad, signing autographs,” Simmons says of the fame he achieved after two seasons on MTV’s#### series, Run’s House. “So I’m use to it. I’m ready to show what I got.”
The most valuable lesson he has taken from famous family members and mentors (including his uncle and aunt, Russell and Kimora Lee Simmons and mentor Bishop Jordan), is “if you take shortcuts in life, you get cut short.”
Even after reportedly approaching his uncle Russell, founder of Def Jam Records, about starting a production company under his new label Russell Simmons Music Group, the young MC has decided to make it on his own in the music game to prove his credibility outside of his famed father.
Team Blackout is currently in the studio working on their album.
They have seven or eight tracks done, Simmons says, and Hip-Hop fans can only expect the best from Rev. Run’s son, JoJo “Make It Happen” Simmons.
