My friend of 30 years Jakai Bishop is what some people would call a “multi-hyphenate.” She’s been a model, an actress, a realtor and a construction worker. She grew up in North Philly — Francisville — and was first noticed for her presence. Not just her beauty, either: Jakai has the spirit and style to match. Always has.
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“As a young woman starting out,” she says, people notice you for “the way you look, your style, your grace, how you carry yourself, and how you walk in the room.” She didn’t grow up rich. She grew up creative.
“There is something really beautiful about being able to take clothes from a thrift store, hand-me-downs, whatever, and make it fly, and represent it as something as if it’s your own,” she says, “as someone that has basically whatever they want.”
At 21, she became a contestant in the first season of America’s Next Top Model, and then transitioned into acting, something she continues still. She’s currently pursuing comedy.
Years later, I ran into Jakai in Old City. She was wearing a hard hat. She’d gone into construction. “My family felt like it would be a good idea to have something stable, but also create flexibility for me to still be able to pursue my dreams,” she says. Family members were in Laborers’ Local 332, the construction and building trades union, and she followed them.
In this line of work, she “learned so much about life,” including how to succeed in a male-dominated industry. No surprise that while working on the stage at the then-First Union Center in advance of the Republican National Convention, a New York Times reporter noticed and interviewed her. Some people are magnetic like that. Jakai is one of them.
Construction led Jakai to her next endeavor, becoming a realtor, and then her first real estate development project, of a multi-unit building on Ridge Avenue in Brewerytown / Sharswood. And, because she’s Jakai, she took what she learned there, and shared it with others: how to obtain a loan, permitting, etc.
The next time she and I reconnected, she was talking to a group of young women about expanding the union by growing a women’s division that specializes in film industry construction work. She doesn’t sugarcoat what it takes to succeed.
“A lot of times people want to showcase an outcome, once you get it to perfection. But there’s a process involved,” she says. “I try to live as an inspiration, not only in that form or aspect of career, but also just living out a full life and just being the type of woman that is not afraid to jump in and do things herself or to learn new things — to basically not be able to be fearful of being seen trying.”
West Philly born and raised with a slosh of Brooklyn, Big Rube partnered with Mitchell & Ness in 2000 to help make it a global brand marketing and selling high-end throwback jerseys. He has been photographing Philly since 2009, including in a Daily News Column from 2011 to 2017. He’s also a chef, preparing to open his own space in 2026.
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