“Some people can write songs. Some people can sing songs. Some people play an instrument. Some people can produce songs. Jesse can do all of those. Jesse can do MORE than those. Jesse's potential is endless.” -Brian Holmes, radio personality - 104.5 WSNX At 19 years of age, one may find it hard to believe that recording artist Jesse Fick truly does it all on his own. Sure enough, the singer/songwriter from Grand Rapids, Michigan has professionally written, produced, recorded, and mastered his own works since 2008, using nothing but a laptop and a condenser microphone. Under the name Glaze GetEm, he proceeded to take the local hip hop scene in Grand Rapids by storm in late 2009 with the release of his hit single “Blowin Up My Phone”. “It was something about that one,” Fick says, “I felt like it was different than any other song I’d recorded at the time, and I absolutely loved it.” The song would receive outstanding reviews from critics all over the state. In early 2010, “Blowin Up My Phone” reached the #4 position on local radio station 104.5 WSNX’s list of most requested songs, and was nominated for Radio Single of the Year in the Grand Rapids Hip Hop Awards. Following up was the single “Stuck On You”, a more uptempo song which received incredible praise from Fick’s younger demographic as well as favorable airtime on WSNX. It seemed as though everything was running smoothly for the local superstar. Jesse tells us otherwise. “The name was something I kind of couldn’t get rid of, or so I thought,” says Fick about his then alias, Glaze GetEm, “it seemed like I was too far ahead to really make a change, and so I stuck with it. But I knew all along that that stupid alias was the reason I wasn’t getting the respect I felt I deserved as a musician. Glaze GetEm was a rappers name, and I was trying to be a rapper. I felt like that’s what my fan base expected of me.” Eventually the stress climaxed with Jesse completely dropping the name completely and falling into seclusion for about a month. “I was seriously questioning if this was what I wanted to do. I would go to bed early and just lay there and contemplate this over and over,” Fick says with a laugh, “Then one night, it hit me. It was a strange emptiness I couldn’t explain. So I went downstairs to my studio and started throwing everything out. Mixtapes, mp3s, anything that had to do with Glaze GetEm was in the trash.” And from the ashes rose his project “I Am Me”. Jesse credits Kanye West, Michael Jackson, and Ludwig van Beethoven as inspiration for the project. “At some point in their careers, they faced adversity similar to what I was going through on an internal level,” he says. Fick spent about 3 weeks writing, producing, and recording the remaining 9 tracks on the album, which is to be released on November 2nd. When asked how he could record that caliber of material in such a short time, he responds “I have wanted to do those songs for a long time. I just didn’t know it. But it’s a crazy thing how quick you can do something like that when you know exactly what you want to say.” The album is recorded in the urban contemporary pop style, but features several outside influences of hip hop, R&B, rock, jazz, classical and world music that set I Am Me apart from typical pop records and create a unique style that sets Fick apart from all. Something else to note: Fick curses exponentially less on I Am Me than all of his other projects. “If I feel I need to say the F word, I’ll say it. I didn’t feel like cursing as much, it doesn’t fit well with my message.” he says. He has since announced that the third single off of the album will be “Fly Away” and will be released simultaneously with the album. In short, I Am Me is gearing up to be nothing less than spectacular as the self proclaimed “goofy, white suburban kid” spreads his wings and takes flight.