Jack Harlow’s pre-fame job had him “buttering buns”
Jack Harlow is a polarising emcee and has been for a long time. Although he is a rapper, many in the culture questioned why Harlow, who is lyrically mediocre, received so much attention during the 2010s and, in 2022, his sophomore album Come Home the Kids Miss You, proved why many were right to have their doubts.
To fans and critics alike, the album simply didn’t deliver. Whether it was due to Harlow’s lack of versatility, the project’s lack of coherence or the overall absence of meaning, 2022 saw the end of the mainstream road for the Kentucky rhymer.
However, his entry into hip-hop and life before fame is interesting nonetheless. The ‘First Class’ rapper has unveiled that he began rapping in middle school. In an interview with Forbes, Harlow explained why, as an adolescent, he fell in love with rap music and its ability to connect with people, stating, “The writing, the storytelling, the rhythm of it — I was so attracted to it! It made you move, made you dance, feel confident; it made you feel like the man.”
During an interview with the radio show The Breakfast Club, Harlow insisted that his mother played him Eminem while he was in the womb and declared that she was a huge rap lover. He explained, “She introduced me to rap. She was a really big rap fan growing up. She was at Public Enemy concerts and all that s*** in the ’90s… She loves hip-hop, so I owe her my introduction. So she loves that I do this.”
After middle school and then high school, Harlow pursued music as an emcee on the underground and decided to move to Atlanta to launch his career, where he eventually met Gangsta Grillz founder DJ Drama, who eventually signed the artist.
Recalling his move to the Georgia city, Harlow reflected, “I moved to Atlanta, six hours away from Louisville, so I was making drives to go down there to do open mics; anything I could do to get on. And I just had heard through the grapevine, ‘Yo, Drama wants to meet you.’ At the time, I’m working at Chick-fil-A at Georgia State. Me and my best friends had moved down, like I’m trying to meet anyone I could meet.”
Harlow emphasised how he worked at Chick-fil-A to make money while he was selling his own mixtapes. However, he told the radio hosts Charlemagne Tha God, DJ Envy and Angela Yee that he didn’t work on the intercom but made the food, detailing, “They didn’t put me upfront. I wasn’t ‘My pleasure’ing! I was literally buttering buns. If you’re doing it all day, you just want to get fast.” But his career soon took off.