Jeremih quickly rose to fame in 2009 with his Top Ten debut single “Birthday Sex,” a lewd lullaby of sorts that sounded like nothing else at the time, optimizing the R&B artist’s slinking vocals and explicit wordplay. The slow jam effectively launched the Chicago native’s career, one that has been studded with additional and quite different Top Ten hits “Down on Me” and “Don’t Tell ‘Em,” among several more gold and platinum singles. Jeremih (2009), All About You (2010), and Late Nights: The Album (2015), his first three LPs, were similarly awarded, while “Planez,” off the latter, was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best R&B Performance. Since that run, Jeremih has partnered with Ty Dolla $ign for the duo album Mih-Ty (2018), issued a handful of headlining singles, and been a prolific featured collaborator, appearing on tracks spanning pop, rap, and numerous forms of club music well into the 2020s.
Starting at the age of three with drums, Jeremih (Jeremy Philip Felton) learned to play several instruments during his childhood, continuing with percussion and keyboards. He performed in the marching band and jazz band in high school, graduated a year early, and briefly studied engineering before he opted to enter the music business program at Columbia College Chicago. While at Columbia, he performed at a campus talent show that emboldened him to pursue singing, a talent he hadn’t taken seriously until that point. Jeremih struck up a partnership with fellow Columbia student and fledgling producer Mick Schultz, and worked on material that attracted a deal with Def Jam. Jeremih debuted in February 2009 with “Birthday Sex,” a slow jam that topped Billboard’s R&B/hip-hop chart and, more impressively, peaked at number four on the pop chart. Thanks to that multi-platinum hit, Jeremih, released that June with production handled entirely by Schultz, debuted at number six on the Billboard 200. The album yielded the singer’s second platinum single, “Imma Star (Everywhere We Are).” A year later, Jeremih issued his follow-up, All About You. Like the debut, it was produced by Schultz and spawned a multi-platinum Top Ten pop hit, the club-friendly “Down on Me,” featuring 50 Cent. All About You peaked at number 27 on the Billboard 200.
Five years passed before the release of Jeremih’s third album. The protracted gap between full-lengths involved numerous release-date changes, and the singer distanced himself from his earlier hits and blamed himself and his label for the absence. Jeremih nonetheless hardly pulled a disappearing act, issuing the high-profile mixtape Late Nights with Jeremih, scoring a Top Ten pop hit in the form of the YG collaboration “Don’t Tell ‘Em” (produced by Schultz and DJ Mustard), and appeared on a large number of tracks headlined by other artists, most notably DJ Khaled’s Top 40 single “Hold You Down.” The long-delayed third proper LP, Late Nights: The Album, finally arrived in December 2015 and entered the Billboard 200 at number 42. In addition to “Don’t Tell ‘Em,” it contained “Planez” (with J. Cole) and “Oui,” likewise multi-platinum singles produced respectively by the duos of Vinylz and Frank Dukes and Needlz and Donut. “Planez” earned Jeremih a Grammy nomination for Best R&B Performance. Late Nights with Jeremih and Late Nights: The Album became the first two parts of a trilogy with the August 2016 release of the commercial mixtape Late Nights: Europe. The slick if quickly recorded collection was highlighted by “London,” featuring Stefflon Don and Krept & Konan, and “Paris (Who Taught You),” assisted by Ty Dolla $ign. Jeremih and fellow Chicagoan Chance the Rapper closed out 2016 with the collaborative holiday mixtape Merry Christmas Lil’ Mama.
During 2017 and 2018, Jeremih released a handful of singles, and in the latter, more productive year, the singer bundled four new solo cuts as The Chocolate Box, and teamed up again with Ty Dolla $ign to issue the full-length project Mih-Ty. Jointly issued by Def Jam and Ty’s home label, Atlantic, Mih-Ty placed at number 60 on the Billboard 200. Its single “The Light” went gold. Jeremih issued some more singles in 2020, but during that year through 2022, he was much more active in featured artist and co-headliner roles, appearing on Afrojack and Chico Rose’s “Cloud 9,” Kito and Zhu’s “Follow,” and Benny Benassi’s “Lovelife,” among many other tracks. The deluge of singles continued in 2023 with tracks like “Crew Thang” with DVBBS and SK8 and “Room” with Adekunle Gold and 2 Chainz. 2024’s intimate, low-key “Wait On It” featured Bryson Tiller and Chris Brown. ~ Andy Kellman, Rovi