FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Music

Jeremih's Great Big Chicago Birthday Bash Was Better Than Sex

The Chicago singer's Pitchfork Music Festival set was like a citywide holiday.

Photos by Petya Shalamanova

There can hardly be a person in America, within a certain age bracket at least, who has celebrated a birthday during the last half-decade and not had someone bring up the song “Birthday Sex.” If you can escape the day without hearing those trills of “you know I-I-I” or at least an amiable suggestion of what sort of ending the night might hold, you may need to question whether your friends and colleagues really have your best interests at heart.

Advertisement

One can only imagine what it must be like for Jeremih himself. There's probably hardly a regular day that goes by that someone doesn't bring the song up to him. And while, on those other 364 days, it may be a bit grating, the insistence on the theme definitely has the effect of making his birthday a landmark event. In Chicago, where Jeremih might as well be the mayor, it has to be treated as a full-blown holiday. Especially if, say, it happens to land on a sunny Sunday afternoon and Jeremih happens to be playing a show to a crowd of thousands just for for the occasion and a few friends like Chance the Rapper happen to be in the neighborhood, which is just what happened yesterday at Pitchfork Music Festival.

So how does such a celebration unfold? Like a party, naturally. With Jeremih's DJ explaining that they just got in from Vegas and dropping the Black Eyed Peas' “I Got a Feeling” and Jeremih coming out and dropping a few of his clubbiest bangers, like “Somebody” and “Down on Me.” With Jeremih excitedly egging on the crowd about whether they wanted the old songs or the new songs. With two dancers in skintight black body suits taking the lyrics to “Fuck You All the Time” fully to heart, breaking out choreography that drew heavily on that most timeless of two person dances, spread legs and all. Again, more mentions of “Birthday Sex.” Inevitable, really.

“Birthday Sex” is an almost comically simple song—which is definitely one reason for its popularity—and that simplicity has long been an albatross for Jeremih, who is one of the best and most innovative pop songwriters of his generation. Naturally, when the time came to play it, he stepped behind a keyboard, the better to underscore his musical chops. Jeremih's fingers danced on the keyboard. People danced in the audience. And then the show could really get going.

Advertisement

If the glossy sound and the growth process of a writer coming into his own defined the early years of Jeremih, recent years have revealed the singer's depth. Beginning with the 2012 mixtape Late Nights with Jeremih and further explored in collaborations with producer Shlohmo and on last year's album Late Nights, he's found tremendous success in crafting lush, HD worlds surrounded by chilly, electric soundscapes, turning R&B nightlife cliches into a canvas for experimental sound. It's hard, after spending enough time immersed within the perfect, cavernous world of Late Nights in particular, to not wish for a dramatic 360 experience to match.

Jeremih's biggest setback has always been an apparent unwillingness to market himself to the full extent and with the full vision that his music suggests: Hence, no video for his song “Don't Tell Em” when it was the number one song in the country, few interviews and little social media, and a live show that misses out on the opportunity to be a dark, cinematic, conceptual affair. You get the sense that even though Jeremih makes music about fantastical nights, he's happiest when in the studio, tinkering. But on the other hand, Jeremih has always been very upfront about who he is, and it is indeed a mercurial identity. He even says it on an emphatic line on “Don't Tell Em”: “you know I'm from Chicago!”

The Chicago was clear as hell onstage for Jeremih's birthday celebration. For one thing, Chance the Rapper came out, which practically caused a riot in the crowd as people surged forward, only to be disappointed when Chance had some sort of unexplained technical problem that made him cut off his “Planes” remix verse after a couple lines. After a few adjustments and a crowd shout-along to “No Problem,” Chance performed “Angels,” the new city anthem.

Throughout the set, friends and family would spill onstage to join in the dancing and excitement—the party at times engulfed the still-excellent pro dancers—and Jeremih continued to hit high notes. He performed “Pass Dat,” “Impatient,” “Planes,” and “oui,” and each one felt like the biggest hit in the world. He played “Don't Tell Em,” which was in fact the biggest hit in the world. The songs were transformed by the environment: If previously the crowd knew these songs as headphone masterpieces or part of their late night driving playlists, now they were cookout classics, set for a gigantic afternoon party in the park.

And as with any cookout, they were just part of the playlist. Jeremih brought out G Herbo, who performed his hit “I'm Rollin.” Jeremih brought out his mom, who shares the same birthday, and had the crowd wish her a happy birthday before taking over the stage to dance to “Step in the Name of Love” with her. The show ended with the insistence that we were going to go out “the right way,” which meant wildly turning up to Desiigner's “Panda.” There were audience members baffled by these decisions. Was it really fair for Jeremih to fill up part of his set time just partying to other people's songs? He easily could have filled out a more ambitious set list, true. But, for one, he'd already sung the clothes off our bodies, and, two, it's hard to imagine he could have put on a show much more in the spirit of the occasion. It was a holiday in Chicago, and the city's stars were there. His family was there. We were partying aggressively and stepping smoothly, and, well, it would be blasphemy after a Jeremih concert to suggest there's anything better than sex, but there are, we can at least agree, many great ways to celebrate a birthday.

Kyle Kramer has the number 773-779-LOVE stored in his phone for times like these. Follow him on Twitter.