Born in Chicago,  Johnson relocated to north Minneapolis together with his mom at 19. To maintain him out of hassle, she purchased him an actual drum equipment. He honed his abilities by listening to the radio. 

“When I moved here, Black radio was only on for four hours from 1 to 5 in the afternoon,” Jellybean stated. “That forced me to listen to a lot of white rock stations. That’s how I got into Three Dog Night and Black Sabbath and Red Earth and all those kinds of people and stuff, and that changed me too musically.”

Johnson would ultimately meet different teenage musicians equivalent to Prince, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, and Morris Day.

“We had to be 14, 15,16 years old. Oh yeah, we started early, honey. Yes, we did,” stated Johnson. His love of music saved him busy. “That kept us off the streets; we had a place where we could go and practice our craft,” stated Johnson.

Johnsons would go on to kind The Time with Jam, Lewis, Monte Moir, Jesse Johnson, and Jerome Benton. They would go on to report a number of albums and traditional songs, together with  “Get It Up”, “The Bird”, “Cool”, “777-9311”, “Jungle Love” and “Jerk Out”.

Outside of his work with The Time, Johnson produced Janet Jackson’s 1990 No. 1 single ‘Black Cat’. He additionally produced and served as a drummer for Patti LaBelle, Human League, New Edition, Cherrelle and Alexander O’Neal.

Johnson performed with Rihanna on the fiftieth Grammy Awards and was the frontman of the Jellybean Johnson Experience. The group spotlighted rising musicians from Minneapolis.

Johnson additionally based the Minneapolis Sound Museum in 2022. The imaginative and prescient was to “educate, celebrate and create, while also providing an environment to learn, gather and showcase artistry that preserves and fosters the Minneapolis Sound genre.”