Jeremiah Ince is a third-year student in the B.A./B.F.A. program. He is a producer, jazz pianist, songwriter, rapper, and composer. Ince started learning the piano when he was six years old and has been creating his own music for the past five years. Ince’s album im not good at these things will release on April 13. To celebrate and showcase his story, he will be debuting the album on April 10 at The ’Sco.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What is your inspiration for creating music?
I would say that, as of late, it’s been a thing where no one can tell my stories but me. I can listen to other people’s music and relate to it, but at the end of the day, that’s not my story. So my main driving force right now is to tell my story, tell the thoughts in my head.
What is the inspiration behind the album?
There’s not a doubt in my mind that I’m gonna be at the level that I dream of. So, this album is essentially about the moment when I reach that level — what if I become the worst version of myself? That’s what the album is really speaking about.
What are your goals and intentions for the album?
My biggest goal is to create a warning for myself, so that if I ever start to do some dumb s**t, my friends and family can send me the album and be like, “Hey, remember this?” and I can fix myself. As people say, the best way to get to your goals is by imagining them and by living through them day-to-day. So, in a way, this album is imagining myself in that spot, living in that spotlight I hope to be in.
What are some things you learned about yourself while creating the album?
I learned that I’m not the same artist that I was when I first started releasing music back in 2021. So this is, what, year five? I’m not the same artist that I was, and I’m very, very proud of that. Another thing I learned about myself is how much I love this. I sent the album to my friend, and he listened to it and responded, “I know you’ve been talking about how much you love music, but this album really shows it.” And I agree. I mean, this album really shows my love for music — my love for not just rapping but every part of it: the production, the mixing, and the storytelling. I love all of it. I think if people come to see my shows, they’ll see that on the stage as well.
What does your songwriting and composing process look like?
For every single album that I’ve made, I created a playlist of songs that will inspire the sound for the album. There’s this book, Steal Like An Artist, and it opens with the Picasso quote, “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.” This book is essentially asking, “How do you steal?” It’s 10 steps to help you be able to steal like an artist. So, before every project, I sit back and make a playlist. I think to myself, “What do I want to steal from these songs?” And then it happens. For this album in particular, I was trying my best to listen not for the production, but for the lyricism and the writing. Being able to make the story clear, without it sounding like a lyrical miracle rapper. I’m not trying to sound like a rapper who’s telling you everything and anything through just their words. I want to tell a story but still leave it up to people to interpret it in their own ways. I think a lot about something Doechii said about Kendrick Lamar — how he can make a song that’s lyrical and still be a hit. That was the main goal of this album, to make songs that are lyrical but that you can just play and not even listen to the lyrics if you want to.
What is it like to be a student so heavily involved in the music space here on campus?
It’s fun. It’s interesting, and yet it’s not interesting. Because with me being a jazz pianist and rapper, people either ask me to rap or play keys for stuff. So that dominates my schedule; it is super packed, and trying to decide when to say yes and no is very, very difficult. I look at my schedule and be like, “Oh, wow, I have no time to sleep.” So it’s fun being a part of this music scene, but it’s also stressful. This is a space where the community is very, very strong, and people want to create so many things. If you love your art style, you’re also like, “I want to create so many things for so many people.” But you also need to have that mindset of like, “Wait, I can’t do this right now.” It is super important, and it is something that I am still actively learning.
What are your goals and visions for the future?
My biggest goal, as of right now, is to graduate in the next two years. That’s goal number one, but the main goal is to win a Grammy. That is my biggest hope. I don’t think that this album will make me a Grammy-nominated artist, but I think it will get people’s attention on me, which is all I need. I just need to be able to leave Oberlin and have someone see me and be like, “Are you Jeremiah Ince?” That has happened around campus every now and again, but to have it happen outside of here — that’s how I know that my goal is going to happen.
Another goal is to be financially stable enough to pay my parents back for all that they’ve done for me. So, one goal is to win a Grammy, and one is to take my parents out to a three-star Michelin restaurant and they pay for nothing. I will just cover it all. That’s also top priority.
