A BRONX TALE
ASK THE FATHER, or ask the son, and they will tell you the same thing: If you’re from there—if you claim it—New York City flows through your veins. It’s simple truth, a fact that remains no matter where you might reside.
Jalen Lecque is the son in this equation, and the question of roots, and of who and what you represent, holds particular relevance for him at this moment in time.
He’s spent much of his life in the New Jersey suburbs, and he spent the past year in the relative isolation of small-town North Carolina. In fact, he’s only actually lived in NYC for a few of his 18 years, but to hear him tell it, that hardly matters. On this, the Bronx native is blunt: “I will always think of myself as a New Yorker.”
His father, Derrick, confirms: “We’re just
