All That Jazz: Yankees’ Chisholm already making noise on and off the field in New York

NEW YORK — Jazz Chisholm has no problem briefly stepping away from a conversation to play a hip-hop song in the Yankees clubhouse. Four times while being interviewed at Yankee Stadium on Sunday morning, Chisholm’s voice trailed off as one song finished, after which he stopped talking, looked at his phone, and jogged across the clubhouse to manage the sound system. 

​​”Damn, I forgot how quick that song is,” Chisholm muttered while his thumb scrolled through the tracks on his phone. “Sorry, one more.”

Some baseball players take the responsibility of clubhouse DJ seriously, but this was a level of dedication I hadn’t seen before. So, after the third time that Chisholm apologized for stepping away from our conversation to play another song, it piqued my interest. What’s the deal?

“These are songs I like,” Chisholm said. “This is me.”

Are they on your Apple Music playlist? Songs you’ve saved over the years?

“No, this is me! This is me singing!” Chisholm said incredulously, because I was still astonished that the rapper’s smooth voice booming through the clubhouse speakers belonged to the Yankees starting third baseman. “All of these songs, the artist is me! This is me. This isn’t a playlist. These are from my notes.”

Jazz … is a singer?

“A rapper … ish,” Chisholm said. He showed me the long list of songs on his phone saved as personal files, insisting he wasn’t kidding. As a rapper, he goes by the name Prince Jazz.  

Are his Yankees teammates, who were starting to trickle into the clubhouse while his voice continued rapping over yet another catchy beat on the speakers, aware that he moonlights as an artist?

“They don’t know. Nope,” Chisholm said, mischievously smiling and shaking his head. “Nobody in here knows they’re listening to me — except the clubbies.”

He pointed to the other end of the clubhouse. There, a pair of Yankees clubhouse attendants had stopped what they were doing, looked at Chisholm and smiled, the way siblings quietly giggle and smirk at each other at the dinner table, getting away with a secret that their parents hadn’t quite figured out. 

Chisholm writes and records songs with his close friend and former Marlins teammate, Nick Gordon. Sometimes he records at a studio — with help from his agency Roc Nation, which was founded by Jay-Z — or he records at home, after playing a game and in his free time. Gordon will call Chisholm with a fresh beat or new lyrics, and they FaceTime and start recording. The former teammates/artists work with producer Julio Angel Fernandez Jr., also known as July Da Producer, to turn their words and sounds into full-blown tracks. It was a hobby that started a couple of years ago, helping Chisholm reset after playing baseball.

“I go home and I forget about baseball,” Chisholm said. “I’m not a baseball player outside of baseball. Just rapping about my life outside of it.”

How did Chisholm manage to have such a loud introduction as a Yankee — we’re talking first player in franchise history to hit seven home runs in his first 12 games kind of loud — without a single teammate having any idea that he’s rapped on and produced, he estimated, around 200 songs? Chisholm said he never told them, and it never came up. 

A poll around the Yankees clubhouse revealed surprised faces and stunned silence. 

“What’s his artist name?” Aaron Judge wondered. “Maybe he’ll make an appearance out on the field.”

As in, the Mets’ Jose Iglesias/Candelita style?

“Exactly,” Judge laughed. “Exactly.”

Giancarlo Stanton said Chisholm should start walking out to his own songs. Alex Verdugo wants to inspire Chisholm to break out the mic on their upcoming road trip and rap for “the boys” on bus rides. Why not? Chisholm wasted no time lifting the Yankees on the field, he might as well boost their energy with his own music, too. 

The 26-year-old Chisholm entered Sunday batting .300 with a 1.092 OPS in the two weeks since being traded by the Miami Marlins. He homered in both ends of a doubleheader Saturday, the latter marking the first time in his career that he went deep in three consecutive games. As far as position players go, the former All-Star is widely considered the flashiest and most impactful trade-deadline pickup for a playoff contender. After his hot start, would the players who anonymously told The Athletic earlier this year that Chisholm is “the most overrated player in baseball” still agree? 

“What was it, like 11 players? I definitely knew who they were talking to, too. It wasn’t hard to find out who the players were,” Chisholm said. “I didn’t really care. Who cares what somebody else has to say about me? If he really voted that I’m overrated, that means you got something in your psyche, brother. 

“Like me, I’m not going out and voting who’s an overrated player because I don’t even know who an overrated player is. I don’t look at people that hard. I only look at people who are good, I’m sorry. So you call me overrated, I gotta be good. That’s how I look at it.”

Chisholm, according to his peers who spoke to The Athletic, received 12 out of 59 votes (20.3%) — twice as many as Angels third baseman Anthony Rendon received — to stand alone as the most overrated player in MLB. Players who voted for Chisholm didn’t elaborate on why they picked him, but it’s possible his appearance on the cover of last year’s “MLB The Show” video game irked some opponents. 

Overrated or not, Chisholm can make or break whether the Yankees enjoy a deep October run or fizzle out early. They enter Monday tied for the best record in baseball, and Chisholm’s immediate impact has helped the Yankees win four of their past five series. He’s one of five players in the majors this season to record at least 20 home runs and 25 stolen bases, joining impressive company with Elly De La Cruz, Shohei Ohtani, José Ramírez, and Bobby Witt Jr. After Juan Soto and Judge, Chisholm is the hottest hitter in the Yankees lineup. 

He seems to have solved the Yankees’ third base problem, too. Chisholm agreed to play there for the first time in his professional career after being traded to the Bronx. Though he’s had some adventures at the hot corner, committing his first fielding error in 12 games at the position Sunday, he’s been solid overall, sporting 2 defensive runs saved and 2 outs above average in 107 innings thus far. Chisholm is shouldering a lot of responsibility playing a new position, all while lengthening a Yankees lineup that was in need of a high-octane spark.

​​”That’s the toughest thing here is, people sometimes come here, anytime guys get traded to any team, they kind of want to change,” Judge told FOX Sports. “I’m trying to make them comfortable, I’m trying to read people. We got a room with so many established guys, so many veterans, MVPs, Cy Youngs. In this room, you just need to come in here and be yourself. 

“We traded for him for a reason. He brings good energy. He’s a great ballplayer. He’s athletic, he can hit, he can field. ‘We need you to come in here and be yourself,’ that’s what I told him. Be yourself. Obviously we’re the Yankees, so things are different, and I think he respects that, which I saw from the beginning. But I didn’t want him to come in here and just kind of, not be himself. So I just wanted him to hear it from me: ‘I just want you to be you. You’re a big part of this.'”

Chisholm also wants to be a big part of the music industry, with aspirations of owning a label and, eventually, dropping an album. Earlier this year, he teamed up with Gordon and released the song “Upset Your Maker” on SoundCloud under Nick & Jazz by Festine. He walked out to one of his own songs while he played with the Marlins, and said he’ll do that with the Yankees once his songs are officially released. But Chisholm has a different priority right now. In the Bronx, he can do more damage holding a bat instead of a mic. 

While Prince Jazz is anonymous within the clubhouse, the Yankees are well aware that Jazz Chisholm is an integral part of their quest for a championship. 

“Keep listening,” said Chisholm, who most recently recorded a song on Aug. 3 in New York.

Keep watching, too.

Deesha Thosar is an MLB reporter for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.

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