By: Brandon Whitaker
When attending college there is no doubt about the value of having a diverse portfolio and resume and when Ian Greco made his way to campus, he made his presence felt early. Greco is a junior at Radford majoring in Media Studies with a concentration in journalism. In addition to being a fellow Tartan staff member and covering Radford Athletics, Greco also has a Music Production minor and has been promoting his music career on Instagram and TikTok.
“I got into music because I am a huge music nerd,” said Greco. “I would just listen to music all day. I collect vinyl, and from how much music I’ve listened to I just couldn’t help but get inspired and go create something of my own.”
Greco creates music under the name “eye gee” and currently has four songs streaming on Spotify. His most recent song titled “Cadence” released on Sept. 25 and Greco shared his creative process behind the song.
“I got the beat from a friend of mine from VCU because we met at a concert with some of my mentors Sh1nob1 and Jay Irvine. I met this producer in the crowd, and chopped it up with him … He sent over three free beats for me. I was able to write with [the Cadence beat] the best, and then I recorded it in two hours, I didn’t even write anything down.”
Many Radford students may know Greco from his social media posting. He often posts content with his songs in the background on TikTok and has specifically crafted his social media strategy so that he appears in the feeds of Radford students.
“I tried to figure out ‘what is it that people react to the best on social media, specifically when it comes to music they don’t know?’ [the answer] was being over the top confident, acting like whatever it is you’re doing is better than everybody else because that confidence, whether it is warranted or not, is contagious … I was putting all the Radford hashtags and Radford locations, mentioning it in my captions as much as I could.”
Greco isn’t done releasing music, and he plans to switch genres for his upcoming song. “It’s a little different from the last song I put out, “Cadence.” It’s got a Clairo type beat, and it’s a lot slower. As the weather is cooling down and getting colder that seasonal depression tends to hit, and that’s the feeling I am trying to capture with this next song.”
