Today we’d like to introduce you to Justin Franklin (i9incher).
Hi Justin, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Sure thing. Although I’m mostly known for Drum and Bass, Jungle, and Modern Breakcore right now, I actually started with electronica back in 2010 making Dark Techno and Industrial music. I would upload to Newgrounds and my YouTube Channel where I gradually gained traction for a few years.
In 2012, I got picked up in a lot of animations and games related to series like HomeStuck and Wow Machinama. The largest being the Madness Series where I was featured in several videos that all hit between 3-6 million views each.
When I started making Drum and Bass, I had my song Psychosis featured in a game on Steam, called the Henry Stickmin Series, although most people are familiar with the publishers other series, “Among Us.” After that game came out, my song went from 10,000 plays on YouTube to over 200,000 and it is still climbing every day. This was due to the games popularity, where my song was featured in videos from channels like Markiplier, Jacksepticeye, and DarkViperAU.
Around 2020, I noticed people stole 2 of my songs and uploaded them to Spotify, so I had them taken down and I uploaded my own tracks there. Eventually, my song “Zoom Noir” got picked up on TikTok, and was featured in a video by the car company Porsche for their custom Porsche 968, thanks to the director Pennacky, who has done music videos for bands like Phoenix. This caused my streams to soar which allowed me to collaborate with even bigger artists in my Niche.
Since then, I have been consistently releasing music and have grown to over 60k monthly listeners on average on Spotify and did my first show at MiniBar back in December of 2025.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I would say it’s been a slow but consistent road with growth for the most part. My biggest struggle has maybe been not growing to the level that other people in my Niche are doing, but I also know I’m purposely not doing a lot of the strategies they are doing because I’m doing everything pretty much for free.
I don’t run ads, I just post organically and I try to take opportunities whenever they come up. My main strategy for growth has always been consistent content and just sending messages to people when they say they are looking for something.
Last year for example, I got a song featured in the Motorcycle racing sim Lanesplit, which was Frontpaged on Steam when it came out and was featured by IGN. The only reason I got into that game was because the creator put out a message on Discord at like 1am and I just happened to see it and I shot him a message and he liked my stuff.
I’m coming out in another one this summer and the process for that was pretty similar. I know that I can probably grow more if I just bite the bullet and run ads but I’ve always just thought it was better to be scrappy and more deserved if I grew based on my own merit vs just paying to get in front of people as much as possible.
Right now I am trying to set myself up to eventually do more shows out of Kansas City, and that is proving to be difficult currently. But I’m hoping I can get enough traction to get a few shows set up the cities where I have the most listeners.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
What do you do, what sets you apart: i9incher
I would say what I’m known best for now is “Making music that sounds like Gran Turismo” , which I get a ton of comments about this across my socials. I use a lot of pads, drum breaks, and samples to give a sort of laid back but familiar vibe and that tends to be the sound I fall into. A lot of my influences come from oldschool punk rock, Lofi, Jazz, and 90’s jungle which all tends to come out pretty frequently one way or another in the music I create, and I believe it gives me at least somewhat of a unique sound compared to others in my genre.
My biggest songs are –
Zoom Noir
Mysteries in Shibuya
Psychosis
Dreams
Space Fighter
I also curate and run the Kansas City EDM Spotify Playlist, which is a monthly updated playlist on Spotify that features all local Kansas City EDM artists. The playlist has been active since December of 2023.
What are you most proud of:
If I had to pick what I’m most proud of, I think it would be the amount of growth I’ve had through sheer grit and merit, without having to spend a bunch of money. It’s also pretty cool that I did something with Porsche and had a game I’m in played by Markiplier.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
For one, I wouldn’t be anywhere without Tom Fulp, who founded Newgrounds. He has been a pretty big supporter of not only me but everyone in that community and without him and Newgrounds I wouldn’t be where I am today.
I also have to thank my wife, Morgan, who has been such a huge supporter of me and my artistic endeavors, she always keeps me grounded and gives me unique insights on songs to let me know if something is working or not, she’s really great at that.
I also have to thank my collab partners like Kinda Rad, aak3, simvlacrvm, as well as my local Kansas City EDM artists Alber, TwinnFlame, Dewey, Max James, and Savage Habits who have helped me along the way with encouragement, emotional support, and letting me know how the scene works to improve as an artist and performer.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/i9incher
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justin_n_franklin/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@i9incher
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/i9incher
- Other: https://discord.gg/n4NCqHbSYk
