Joey Aich lives for ‘Moments Like These’

The concept of time surfaces throughout Moments Like These, the forthcoming full-length from Joey Aich, with the Columbus rapper ping-ponging between the idea that the clock is ticking down and the reality that life for him is really just getting started. 

On “Die Old,” Aich raps that his time is right now, while the title track revels in the idea that some stories necessarily take time to develop. Elsewhere, he professes wonder that his calendar has even extended to this point. “I’m not supposed to be here,” he raps on “Take1Raise1” – a line that is both literal (Aich has walked away from two car accidents) and rooted in statistical realities (as a young Black man who once had a police officer draw a gun on him, the rapper holds a deep awareness of the ways the odds were stacked against him).

Later, he boasts that his existence eclipses any and all metaphysical bounds (“I’m timeless!”).

Aich said this focus is partly rooted in a conversation with his girlfriend from a couple years back in which the two were discussing the future. “And she asked me if I’d still be rapping at 35. And I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m still going to be creative. I’m still going to do whatever feeds my soul,’” continued Aich, who will perform the entirety of Moments Like These in concert with the Head Band at Rambling House on Wednesday, Aug. 27, with a full album release to follow in late September or early October. “But it also put things into perspective, because at the time I was about to turn 30, and it was like, all right, the clock is ticking.”  

The tracks on Aich’s forthcoming release began to surface around this same time, informed by everything from his struggle to carve out a career in music to the two years he worked with students at Wedgewood Elementary as part of We Amplify Voices (WAV), a nonprofit that partners with students in more than two dozen schools across central Ohio, utilizing music as a means to help empower kids in underserved communities. 

These experiences formed the basis for jazz-flecked album track “Footprints,” which emerges as the beating heart of Moments Like These, Aich using the experience of someone shooting at one of his students as a launch point to explore the ways violence affects young people in the city’s forgotten neighborhoods, the importance of leaning on elders, and the impacts our actions can have on those coming up behind us.

“I remember one of the kids, he was shot at, and when he came back to school the next day … everybody was laughing and making jokes, and I was like, ‘That’s not normal,’ and it just felt like all these middle school kids were completely desensitized [to the violence],” said Aich, who in the song also makes oblique reference to Sinzae Reed, a 13-year-old who was shot and killed outside of Wedgewood Apartments in October 2022 – just a stone’s throw from the school where the rapper worked with students via WAV. “And we talked about [Reed’s shooting death] when we were writing our songs, and … I was like, ‘Look, you guys shouldn’t have to live this way. You should be able to ride your bikes and play basketball without these fears.’ It just broke my heart for them to go through having one of their classmates murdered and then have it be like, well, back to your regularly scheduled programming. … That didn’t feel good.”

Within “Footprints,” Aich addresses this discomfort while also expressing the need for older generations to lend a hand to those youths tasked with navigating these pockmarked roads. “Drop a ladder cause without it walls are hard to climb,” he raps, a few beats later adding a bit of practical advice. “If you call police, then you crossing lines.”

A number of tracks later, Aich lands on the receiving end of one of these assists, teaming with veteran Columbus rapper Blueprint for “Grind,” a song steeped in the reality that creative work is just that – work – and extending from the mentor-mentee relationship the two musicians have developed since first crossing paths in the late 2010s.

For Aich, who first stumbled onto Blueprint after college, this relationship has been revelatory, opening his eyes to the reality that there are paths to a career in hip-hop that exist outside those more hyped realms. “When people look at music, they’ll look at Drake, Kendrick and J. Cole and be like, ‘That is a successful career,’” said Aich, who in recent years has turned to Blueprint for advice on everything from booking a tour to the steps needed to get your LP into record stores. “So often, we don’t take into account the people who are doing the exact same thing you want to do. And it might not seem as glamorous to some, but Blueprint is on a 50-day tour right now. And to see him be from Columbus, making music, doing shows… that feels like a more realistic path to me.”

These collective experiences have helped to inform the way Aich has chosen to move in this moment, adopting an approach that gives tribute to those who helped clear his path – be it his parents, teachers, or musical mentors – while simultaneously extending a hand back to help lift the younger generation to even greater heights.

“One of my mantras now is … to change the person who changes the world,” Aich said. “If it’s a relay race, it’s like somebody gave me the baton and I need to run, but then I need to hand it off. It’s about being a light and making this world better.”