Last Thursday night in Lowell’s basement, Jaeschel Acheampong ’24 (“YoungJae”) debuted his rap album JAESCHEL. He exuded a nervous energy while many of his friends chatted quietly during the first few tracks. But as he paused to explain the backstory behind each song, he built up steam and showed flashes of his performance prowess. When his speaker cut out mid-song, he said, “Fuck it, I’ll go acapella.” Acheampong hopped on a table to rap until he was rejoined perfectly in time by the speaker.
At Crimson Jam the following night, Acheampong’s energy was infectious. The audience jumped in time with him as he leaped across the stage, and they screamed out “okay!” after every line of the hook in his lead single, “tuned in.” At the end of his set, the audience started a “one more song!” chant that earned them another performance of “tuned in.” Acheampong was absolutely at home performing in Harvard Yard and surely secured many new listeners with his spirited performance.
On JAESCHEL, Acheampong is both boastful and modest, both funny and reflective. He cannot be described in one fell swoop. As Acheampong explained, “There’s the happy-go-lucky guy, the more intimate and relaxed guy, and I got feelings, you feel me?” Along with being an up-and-coming rapper, he is an engineering sciences concentrator and a sprinter and jumper on Harvard’s track team. Hehas received skepticism about his ability to achieve on all three levels. “I can’t just drop a good song. I have to drop a good song, with a good album, with good cover art, before people are like, okay this athlete can actually make music,” he said. But instead of shying away from those who don’t believe in him, Acheampong embraces such sentiments: “It’s annoying, but I like proving people wrong. It’s like, I can do it, so just watch me.”
The production on “avenue,” the first of JAESCHEL’s eleven tracks, is grandiose and provides an excellent introduction to the album. Acheampong perfectly executes a beat switch halfway through the song, teasing his ability to produce and rap on a trap beat before fading out into the next song. As evidence of his greenness, the first half of the album had some hollow beats and lacked the energetic percussion shown after the beat switch on “avenue.”
Acheampong enlists the help of J. Rico and Oh Alice on “wolves,” one of the best tracks of 2022. Acheampong begins by singing a poignant melody, upon which he adds layers of harmony. J. Rico’s short and sweet verse builds on the cinematic energy of the track, leading into beautiful two-part vocals from Oh Alice. Acheampong then spits his most powerful verse on JAESCHEL. You don’t often hear a rapper sound this desperate about his desire to reach his goals and beyond. He doesn’t want to be great, he needs to be great. As the track closes, Acheampong leaves you wishing only that the verse had been longer.
As a tribute to one of his greatest musical inspirations, Acheampong sampled the introductory drums from Kayne West’s “Black Skinhead” in his song “mine”. “You hear a Kanye track, and you’re like, how did his brain go here?” Acheampong said.
Acheampong praises Metro Boomin’s ability to exemplify “complex simplicity.” “It sounds like an oxymoron, but he can take something huge and drill it down to where the artist has a place to float, ” he said. Acheampong incorporated this complex simplicity by creating huge tracks that are busy with interesting sounds and melodies, but not so busy that they become incoherent.
Acheampong said that movie soundtracks inspired a collaboration with Abdul Mohammed ’24 on “thousand hounds.” “A lot of [the inspiration for “thousand wolves”] came from Ludwig Göransson, who’s composed for some Marvel films and Disney series. Through bouncing ideas back and forth with Abdul while he was reciting the poem, we were able to create a break within the album that intros my favorite song, ‘wolves,’” Acheampong said. Mohammed’s spoken word on “thousand hounds” is magnificently paced and performed, and the orchestral track under it supports Abdul’s poetry very well.
On “preach,” Acheampong demonstrates a penchant for introspection. He focuses on the all too familiar feeling of giving advice that you yourself don’t even follow: “So they tell me practice what I preach, I can’t // Lying to myself now I can play pretend.” With additional production from K. Ikeji ’25, a gospel choir made up of T. Miller ’25, D. Falode ’25, B. Owusu-Amo ’25, O. Otitigbe ’25, and A. Gabeau ’25 creates a full-bodied and elegant backdrop for Acheampong’s verses. Hearing the rest of JAESCHEL, one might imagine that Acheampong is rock solid, but “preach” is where he admits he’s just as unsure as the rest of us.
With JAESCHEL, Acheampong has proved to his listeners that his music need not fall by the wayside as he pursues his academic and athletic goals. As of now, he wants to keep his post-graduation plans open. He said, “I have the best case scenario in mind for the three aspects of myself. In terms of track, I want to go pro. Go to the Olympics, all that. In terms of my academic future, I want to work with Nike or Reebok to develop sneaker technology that makes athletes better. In terms of music, in my dream world—this is when I got my Grammies, chilling—my goal is to have a label that helps people like myself. Like, don’t stress about money, don’t stress about resources, just make the art that you want to make and we’ll get it out there.” Acheampong has big dreams, and he has the talent and dedication to get there.
In the meantime, the best way to support Acheampong is to get the word out. As he said, “Don’t gatekeep! Same way you would geek out about Travis Scott, geek out about one of your boys.” So, listen to JAESCHEL. And if you like it, tell your friends about it.
Matt Sakiyama ’25 (msakiyama@college.harvard.edu) loved JAESCHEL, and so will you.
Photo taken by Kyle Murphy ’23