With the No. 1 iTunes free download in March and gigs in cities like New York, Atlanta and Detroit, singer/songwriter Mike Posner is hardly your typical college student. The Duke University senior and his band, The Brain Trust, fuse hip-hop and pop music on their most recent mixtape, “A Matter of Time,” which Kanye West praised on his blog. schmooze sat down with Posner before one of his Chicago-area concerts to discuss his career.

schmooze: How did you get started?

Mike Posner: I started off playing drums when I was in fifth grade in the school band and progressed from there. Kids used to come to my house and we would jam. When I was 14 I started making beats. I was always making beats for rappers until the second semester of my sophomore year. Then I got tired of it [writing for others], and it has been a whirlwind since then. I’ve been getting so much better, week by week. I’m making new stuff every day.

schmooze: What’s your favorite song that you’ve written?

Posner: “Still Not Over You.” I love the whole concept-always having feelings for your first girl. I’m not sure if other people can relate to that. She knows who she is. It’s like several girls who think it’s all about them. During one part I said, “Remember, babe, I wrote you all of those love poems in seventh grade. And I hope that you threw those out when we went our separate ways. ‘Cause I don’t want to see them up for sale on eBay.” Well, there’s a girl who I wrote these love poems to in seventh grade and she saved them. She always tries to blackmail me with them. We’re friends, but it’s creepy that she saved them.

schmooze: Where does your inspiration for other songs come from?

Posner: It’s usually from real life. If it’s a song about a girl, chances are that girl exists somewhere in real life. The world’s a big, beautiful place, and there is a lot of inspiration around.

schmooze: Did you ever go to Hebrew School?

Posner: I grew up in a secular vein. I learned Yiddish. But don’t ask me anything because I don’t remember most of it. We learned about history and culture and Sunday School, but we didn’t read out of the Torah or anything.

schmooze: Do you have any fun Yiddish School stories?

Posner: We would do all this crazy stuff at Sunday School. This kid Jacob was really crazy-worse than I was. There was a bathroom with a lock on it, and he went in and locked the door, climbed out the window and walked back in the front door.

schmooze: Do you think that having Yiddish in your background has influenced your music?

Posner: The way my parents chose to bring me up-that is, really open-minded-has influenced my music a lot. My music is a hodgepodge of different things that are around me. I have all kinds of friends, and they never will meet each other, but my music has brought me to these different types of people, and I hope my music will bring different types of people together.

schmooze: What are you working on now?

Posner: I have another free CD coming out in this fall, and then my proper album will come out next year. I just did a remix to Soulja Boy’s “Kiss Me Thru the Phone.” I want to do a cover of the Beach Boys’ “I Get Around.” You’re going to say that I can’t do it, but you’ll see. I put my own twist on these songs that I cover so it’s not just me regurgitating their songs. I do them all to prove a point.

Text By: Emily Laermer