He went from busking to Broadway.
J. Alphonse Nicholson, who was on a drumline growing up in North Carolina, spent years drumming on the road in Recent York City before he hit the massive time.
“You’ve gotten so many various street musicians who try this,” he told me on this week’s “Renaissance Man.”
“But that’s how I made a living, man. So long as I could make $100 a day. That was what I did daily for a very long time,” he said. “I moved to Recent York, began street drumming there, after which the sky’s the limit, man … I made my option to Broadway. And first Broadway show, we got the Tony award.”
The musician-turned-actor is talking about his role in “A Soldier’s Play” but his résumé is deep with credits on the stage and screen. He’s had a task in “White Men Can’t Jump,” which debuted on Hulu last month, and he plays closeted rapper Lil Murda on Starz’s “P-Valley.“
“Everyone knows a Lil Murda, especially coming from our communities. You all know someone who has to cover who they are surely,” he said. “Whether it’s because that is who they’ve been their entire life, whether or not they went from the, you understand, prison pipeline and having to return out and checking out, ‘hey, I’m in love with men.’ So regardless of the case could also be, I knew that I knew who this gentleman was and that I could do justice with the role, regardless that I wasn’t a part of the community, regardless that I used to be a heterosexual man.”
Before taking over the difficult role, the married father discussed it together with his wife and his family.
“I said, ‘Hey, that is going to be a heavy burden to hold … But I feel prefer it’s going to repay in all sorts of the way,’ ” he said.
His fearless portrayal of Lil Murda has elevated him and gained him a loyal fanbase within the LGBTQ community.
“I’m grateful that I’m in a position to shine light on people who I’ve been loving my entire life. Whether you’re my cousin, my brother, my sister … And so I’m grateful for the combined sort of allyship on each side, right? [For the LGBTQ community] to succeed in out to the heterosexuals and say, ‘Hey, we love this show,’ ” was gratifying, he said.
Raised within the Pentecostal church, J. had an almost accidental foray into acting. He went to school considering he’d study music, but that modified when he was stopped within the hallway by a teacher who recognized his charisma and said, “‘Hey, you bought a fantastic personality. I saw you talking to this young lady. I feel it is best to come audition for this play.’ So I got the acting bug then and had all the time been a fan of the standard suspects: Will Smith, Denzel, though, actually, considered one of my favorite actors growing up was Robin Williams … After which Meryl Streep, Viola Davis.”
But he remains to be pursuing music and has created tracks for “P-Valley.” His favorite rapper of all time is Lil Wayne, but that education with hip-hop got here later in life.
“Especially coming up at that Pentecostal church. My mother would hardly let me hearken to anything, man. I feel Kenny G was as worldly as we got,” he quipped.
“Cannabis has had an enormous effect on my life,” he said, adding that he later realized it was therapeutic. “There was something that I didn’t just use recreationally, but something that helped me control my anxiety, insomnia, where there’s small aches and pains … cannabis really became a resource for me. So once I moved to LA, I had some people introduce me to Chris Ball and I said, ‘Hey, let me be the face of your brand.’ And I really need to proceed to assist not only push black-owned cannabis however the medicinal properties of it.”
J. can be a proponent of medicinal marijuana and a brand ambassador for a black-owned, LA-based cannabis company, Ball Family Farms.
They even put his face on considered one of their strains called “The Phonzie,” which he described as a lemony hybrid.
When he first laid his eyes on it, he said: “I cried like a baby.”
And just consider what he’ll do when he wins that Oscar?
