Much like his father, Mayor Eric Adams, and Jay-Z — his former boss at Roc Nation — Jordan Coleman is ready to put his carefully curated blueprint into action.
Coleman, an aspiring filmmaker and rapper, is set to release his latest single, “Go Get It,” later this month after taking his talents to Albania for an “American Idol”-style competition in November. The 27-year-old lyricist also known as “Jayoo” didn’t win, but Coleman plans to parlay the televised international appearance into bigger stages, and beyond.
“I want to be a rapper, I want to be an international filmmaker, I want to be an artist,” the Big Apple’s ambitious first son told The Post. “I’m trying to figure a way to merge them together in a creative and smart way.”
Coleman, who publicly disagreed with his father in July when Adams blasted drill rap, said his passion for music runs deep. Admittedly, it’s a lifelong love affair that hasn’t always been embraced by his family.
“Of course, parents look at rap a little differently than how a kid would look at it,” Coleman said of his dad, 62, and his 59-year-old mother, Chrisena Coleman. “Music and hip-hop has always been a part of what I wanted to do, but when I went off to school, my parents were like, ‘We’re not sending you to school to be a rapper, we’re sending you to school to be a filmmaker.’”
In 2006, Coleman, then just 11, got his first industry break as the voice of Tyrone the Moose on Nickelodeon’s Emmy Award-winning animated series “The Backyardigans.”
“When I went off to school, my parents were like, ‘We’re not sending you to school to be a rapper, we’re sending you to school to be a filmmaker.’”
Jordan Coleman
Using money from his 35-episode voiceover run as an anthropomorphic moose, Coleman then shifted his focus at age 12 to making documentaries, stressing the importance of education to young minorities in 2008’s “Say It Loud.”
The 48-minute, star-studded documentary — featuring appearances by NBA icon Kobe Bryant, NFL great Michael Strahan and rapper Ludacris, among others — was screened nationally by AMC Theatres. The film was also showcased at Hackensack High School, where Coleman later played football and basketball.
“I saw how a lot of them weren’t focusing on schoolwork,” Coleman said of his classmates and peers. “They were focusing on being the next hip-hop artist or next athlete. So, I got all their favorite celebrities in the film and had [the celebs] talk about how education helped them get to where they are.”
Coleman followed up his foray into documentaries by directing “Payin’ the Price,” a 2011 drama he directed, co-wrote and starred in along with his mother, a former New York Daily News crime reporter. The enterprising scholar later studied film and media arts at American University in Washington, DC, from which he graduated in 2017.
Coleman kept his momentum going post-college in spring 2018 as an intern at “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” a multifaceted position he thoroughly enjoyed.
“The environment there was so positive,” Coleman gushed. “It was just so rewarding and refreshing. I got to rotate between three jobs and my first job was the house band.”
Coleman worked alongside Grammy-winning musician Jon Batiste, the show’s bandleader of seven years prior to his exit in August. He also took copious notes as Colbert perfected his nightly monologues.
“I’m watching Stephen Colbert do his rehearsals, I’m seeing the camera crew prep the stage,” Coleman recalled. “Because when it’s game time, it’s game time, you know? It’s live and we get into it — we got to make sure it’s right the first time.”
Coleman’s attention to detail and raw talent didn’t go unnoticed. Colbert updated fans on his onetime apprentice’s promising rap career during an “Intern Check-In” segment in early December.
“Jordan was a great intern, and we all loved working with him,” Colbert told viewers. “And there’s a fun fact there: He was also the son of then-Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who is now the mayor of New York — which may explain why Jordan has left for Albania.”
Adams and Chrisena, who never married, split up when Coleman was a toddler. A New Jersey native, Coleman lives in Hackensack with his stepfather, Roosevelt, and 21-year-old half-brother, Justin. His mother has an aggressive form of dementia that has robbed her the pleasure of seeing her son’s recent success, he said.
“Over these last two years, it’s been progressing rapidly,” Coleman said. “It’s a bittersweet situation but I know she’s still proud.”
Mayor Adams, in a statement to The Post, said Jordan “represents the voice of aspiration” among America’s youth.
“When he was a child, my job as his father was to give him instructions, educate him, and prepare him for the future,” Adams told The Post. “He is now a man and being that man means not speaking in my voice but finding his own. Jordan is drawing on the lessons he’s learned and is making the best decisions for himself. I’m extremely proud of the person he’s grown up to be.”
The two have always been close, Coleman said, but a 2017 post-college trip to France, Turkey, China and Sri Lanka bonded them on a deeper level.
“We really talked and we really understood each other’s positions in life and our life goals,” the son recalled.
The vacation was also when he told his dad he wanted to be a rapper, which Adams embraced.
“‘Take this trip as an eye-opener for you,'” Clemans recalled his dad telling him. “‘There’s a big world out there that you can tackle. Don’t just think the United States is the end-all, be-all for you. You went to American University so you can rep America.’ And was kind of, you know, the kickstarter for me to figure out my path.”
Coleman — who has a girlfriend but asked to keep her name private (“We’re both focusing on our careers, but she’s pretty dope”)— has released five singles to date, including the racy “Itsy Bitsy” track featured on Albania’s Kënga Magjike, or “Magic Song.” His first full-length album, “Jordan,” should be out in March.
The up-and-coming wordsmith considers Ice Cube among his biggest influences, noting how the “iconic” N.W.A. emcee seamlessly shifted to acting in 1991’s “Boyz n the Hood” and 1995’s “Friday.”
Among more recent rap luminaries, Coleman praised his onetime boss, Jay-Z, as well as Drake, Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole.
“It’s pretty fascinating, too,” Coleman said of Drake’s continued chart-topping dominance. “I’m interested to see if he’s going to go into the whole acting side of things once he gets finished up with music.”
For now, Coleman, a former creative coordinator at Roc Nation’s film department, has no interest in limiting himself to one industry. He left his role at Jay-Z’s entertainment conglomerate in September to focus on the Albanian music competition.
“My end goal is to be a filmmaker, whether it’s as a producer, an actor, director or whatever, but during my young years, I want to be a hip-hop artist,” he told The Post. “I want to be like Marky Mark turning into Mark Wahlberg or Will Smith, you know what I’m saying?”
The opportunities to work with masters of their respective fields such as Colbert, Jay-Z and Oscar-winning actor Forrest Whitaker — Coleman was his assistant on TV’s “Godfather of Harlem” — is not lost on the well-connected first son.
“It’s been awesome,” he told The Post. “And I can tell that my time is coming, too.”
