How Derek Jarman and strip clubs inspired Jeremy Pope’s debut EP

Jeremy Pope literally bursts onto my screen when he joins our Zoom call. With our interview scheduled for 5pm BST, the actor and singer arrives promptly at 5:01pm, sporting a big smile. He greets me with an excitable thumbs up and accidentally triggers a dozen fireworks around his body. The new MacBook update sent Pope, myself and his publicist Jenny into a frenzy. We reacted to this example of technological advancement in the same fashion I assume the early humans did when they first discovered fire, with a long and drawn-out: “Woah” before bursting into laughter. From that moment on, I knew this interview would be fun.

From reading other interviews with Pope, you get the sense that he loves making art deeply. To him, art is a space of great release, and because of this, he is incredibly open when being interviewed. In an interview with Kyle Buchanan for The New York Times, following his Golden Globe-nominated performance in The Inspection (directed by Elegance Bratton) Pope laid his head beside Bunchanan’s lap for 90 minutes, “gazing upward with an expression so open and tender” that Bunchanan found his walls dropping. Even though our interview was shorter and conducted via video call, Pope’s willingness to share, in his music and during our conversation, made me want to reveal more of myself to him in return.

LAST NAME: POPE is the Emmy, Grammy and Tony-nominated star’s debut EP. While he is renowned for his outstanding performances in plays like Choir Boy (2019) and Ain’t Too Proud (2019), and his roles in Hollywood (2020), Pose (2021), The Inspection (2023), and more, singing and creating music have always been his true passion. “Music and singing have always been my first love”, Pope reveals. “And now people will have an introduction to finally seeing me as a musician.”

LAST NAME: POPE is independently released and a culmination of four years of hard work. A fusion of funk, soul, R&B, and mellow house, the record delves into profound themes including religion, Blackness, masculinity, and queerness, among others. “There is something powerful about seeing someone stand in their Christianity or belief in something.” Pope shares with Dazed.” But I also have questions about what we’ve been taught, about what I’ve been taught. Am I not honouring my mother and father, as the Ten Commandments state, because I embody both masculine and feminine energy? These are the questions I wanted to explore in this record.”

Following the release of LAST NAME POPE, we spoke to the Florida native about his music; the influence capitalism has on art and the photography books that inspired his world-building. 

Congratulations on your EP. It is beautiful, and the visual material is thought-provoking. In an interview with GQ, you mention how you’ve been building towards this record since 2020. How has this EP evolved over the last four years, and how does this project reflect your journey as an artist?

Jeremy Pope: The beautiful thing about working on something that takes time is when you finally arrive at it being finished. You can mark the different seasons of your life through the practice of making stuff. I’ve learned to embrace the fact that things in life take time. This EP was about taking the time to understand my sound and what I had to say. It’s all very different from being an actor or being given a script where you’re told the world you’re in or the role you need to fill. Something like this is very vulnerable and personal. I wanted my first project to reflect that. Through this EP, I was able to have conversations with my ego through the music, production and lyrics. Sometimes, we look at our egos as negative things. But for me, my ego also protects me and reminds me of my worth – whether that’s in a relationship, business affairs or whatever. So, this EP has a lot to do with my ego and so much more. The last four years have been an evolution and a period of relearning.

Can you speak more about the difference between acting and making music that’s so personal to you?

Jeremy Pope: In acting, you can hide behind a character, show or film you’re in if people don’t receive it well. If people don’t receive it well, you can always say, ‘It wasn’t my fault’ or ‘It was the director.’ But when it’s your music, truth, words and artistic opinion, it’s all on you. You must come in strong and believe it. That’s why for me, things took so long, and by the time we got to shooting visuals, I was like, I still kind of fuck with this song. So it must be aight! In many ways, this EP was a character study, but I was the character. I had to unpack my shit, and I got to talk my shit. I also got to hear what I sound like, the broken and whole pieces and know that it was perfect just the way it is because it’s honest.

In VIBE’s review of your two lead singles, ‘U, LOST’ and ‘WHAT I GOTTA DO’, they describe them as being alt-R&B. How would you personally describe the genre of this EP? And what music helped inspire its overall sound?

Jeremy Pope: I feel like most people say they don’t want to be put in a box, which I understand. But people have asked me, ‘Who do you want to come after on a Spotify playlist?’ so you do have to think about where you fall and sit genre-wise. It’s not pop music, and it’s not contemporary R&B. I think the alternative genre makes sense because there’s space to be fluid and different.

The first song on the EP, ‘U, Lost’, was inspired by strip clubs. I was in Atlanta for a friend’s birthday party, and they wanted to go to the club. It inspired me to make a song that could be played at the strip club, too. So I was listening to Future, and I’m from the South, so I was also listening to Trick Daddy. Busta Rhymes was also a huge visual reference for this EP, and it was more about possessing that masculine energy. One thing I wanted to play with in my music was possessing masculine and feminine energy. I think that most times, Black men aren’t allowed to be soft. We’re not allowed to talk about our feelings and share how we feel in an honest way. So that’s why the record starts with this ‘U, Lost’ record, which is me and my ego talking with my chest, but then allowing that to crack open and get into more emotional depth. So many different references came in because of the amount of time I spent making this record, but honestly, anyone who is art-first and art-driven is inspiring to me.

I find that so refreshing because, under capitalism, money comes first, and art comes second.

Jeremy Pope: Maybe it’s because I’m an actor, and I’m already in a world of capitalism, but I’m kind of like, surely my art can’t be that. I need the capitalist thing to pay for what I’m really trying to do. I want to honour my art. My directors Parris Goebel, C Prinz and I were adamant about not making anything until we were ready to scream it. There has to be a level of intention. It can’t just be like, ‘Oh, we found a great idea and a reference on Pinterest.’ We were like, fuck that. Let’s pull up art books and get to the thesis of what we’re trying to say. This was super intentional, and I feel the most confident about it now because I know I took my time. I believe in myself and believe in it more than ever.

What art books did you take references from?

Jeremy Pope: I was looking at this Gordon Parks photo book, which uses black and white photography to share moments of racial and sexual tension. There was another book that I can’t remember, but it explored hip-hop from the 80s and 90s. I’m a 90s baby, so seeing my first impressions of music and masculinity was interesting. That’s why many of our visual references are shot in black and white because we’re trying to have a conversation about masculinity and femininity. They feel like black or white, like you’re either one or the other. But what happens in the grey? That’s really what black and white is; there is so much grey. So I wondered, what if we explored that in-between place in gender?

“In many ways, this EP was a character study, but I was the character. I had to unpack my shit, and I got to talk my shit.” – Jeremy Pope

I actually had a question about why you stylistically made all your visuals black and white. The video for ‘U, LOST’ and ‘WHAT I GOTTA DO’, have sharp blue colours coming in and out of the frame. What does that represent in the overall story you’re trying to tell? 

Jeremy Pope: I watched a documentary called Blue (1993) by Derek Jarman, which just showed a blue screen but captured people’s voices during the AIDS epidemic. Including the blue felt like a homage to queer liberation, freedom and my existence in my truth. We just found all the ways we could to tell this story and add more nuance to something already heavily nuanced. That felt exciting to me as an artist, and we leaned in as much as possible at every opportunity.

Lastly, you’ve described this EP as a personal journey that has allowed you to delve into your identity and engage in a dialogue with your ego. What has been the most challenging part of this reflective process, and what have you discovered about yourself?

Jeremy Pope: The most challenging part is releasing it and allowing people to see it. Because some of it isn’t the prettiest version of me, and maybe people won’t connect. With art, it’s subjective, so people can listen to it and think it’s trash or say it’s not alt R&B, and that can be true to them. Music and singing have always been my first love, and now people will have an introduction to seeing me as a musician. I’m going to evolve, and my sound is going to change. So I think that probably is the hardest part, knowing that this is where I am now, but also remembering that it’s not all I’ll become. It’s all about releasing stuff so that I can have space to bring in more and download more. And through this, maybe it won’t take four more years for me to write another body of music.

LAST NAME: POPE is out now.