J
eremih was born in 1988 in the state of Chicago, Illinois. Since he was just a child, he had been playing music and had the ability to play drums, piano, bass, team, and sax. He said that not only was music a passion, but it was his way of life. “I wouldn’t say I was forced into music, but while other kids were getting video games and toys for Christmas, I was given musical instruments. Mom worked hard to make sure I had all the tools available to develop a talent she saw in me even then. Within no time I had all the essentials of a band,” he remembered his younger years as his mother exposed him to musical instruments.
Jeremih established an astonishing singing capacity, but he did not have a skilled coach who taught him how to play music. “I would listen to the radio and I learned to play by ear. I tried to take classes but the teacher would always yell at me because I wouldn’t read the music. I would close my eyes and feel it and that’s how I taught myself,” he said about his experience of playing.
Not only was Jeremih an incredible athlete, but he was also a student with an impressive academic record. He missed his junior year and graduated when he was 16 years old from senior high school. At the point, his parent had recommended him to enroll in the engineering science program of the University of Illinois. “I went there for a semester and had no problem,”I went there for a semester and there was no problem. “I was fully focused but then I started getting involved with the on-campus talent shows. That’s when music really started taking control. I would be in class just writing lyrics. So I told my mom I wanted to enroll in Columbia College in Chicago because it was an art school and that’s what I was into.”
“I was set to perform in a talent show where I had to be Stevie Wonder. Being that his music has had such a strong influence on me, I knew I had to kill it, sort of as a tribute to Stevie,” he spoke about one of his performances that made him want to sink further into the music business.
“I guess you could say I am more of a rapper turned singer,”I hope you might say that I am more of a rapper turned singer. “I have always been into writing poetry with witty rhyme schemes. I just decided to put a melody to it and I had my sound. Once I started playing the keys and singing, it was like a dynamic duo.”