Josiah Sklarsky was born with music in his veins. It just took him some time to figure out how to express it.
In the halls of U-High, he walks with AirPods in his ears and a mind that is always creating — whether it be beats, lyrics or an image.
“F—, I’m depressed / no stress in my chest / making good impressions / woke up, made a beat,” are the lyrics of the fourth verse in “Good Today,” one of the songs on Josiah’s first self-released EP “Hall of Fame EP” under the stage name Josk.
From his uncle, who combines opera and rap, and his father, a retired rapper, Josiah has always been surrounded by music. He found his own love for it in his ninth grade digital music class.
Josiah uses he/they pronouns and is referred to by friends as they.
“The start of last year was rough for me until I could get medicated,” Josiah said about his ADHD.
Josiah, a sophomore, said his music teacher, Francisco Dean, was helpful in reaching out to him when he needed help, and having weekly meetings to make sure he was caught up.
To adapt for Josiah, Mr. Dean created a space for him to make music with his two biggest influences — his uncle and father — igniting his spark to create music.
“He’s done a lot of adapting for me,” Josiah said, “especially with projects like for one I brought my dad out of retirement and I got [him and my uncle] to rap over a song with me — and that’s something that he said hadn’t been done before in the class.”
Even before this class, Josiah had always loved music. Back when he was younger, Josiah fell in love with the music of Kesha — a big difference between the artists who inspire him now like Tyler, the Creator and Connor Price — and began his 10-year piano journey. But as he grew older and his love of music bloomed, his identity grew with it.
“[Music’s] definitely become part of my identity,” Josiah said. “Having made and released music now, listening to music that I like is more so I can listen to it with, like, different ears. It’s kind of like speaking another language.”
Sophomore Clara Golley, a close friend of Josiah’s, has watched him flourish since he found music.
“It’s been really, really cool,” Clara said. “It’s awesome to see how they’ve grown through their music, which is really awesome while being his friend and knowing the sort of context around a lot of that.”
From beyond the recording studio, Clara can see how Josiah has grown as a person, and being able to listen to that music allows others to feel like Josiah is there with them.
“I’ve definitely seen their confidence grow a lot,” Clare said, “and especially, like, with the music, too. I can see how the music influences them to grow, and the same way vice versa with the music.”
Josiah isn’t even sure a career in music is the path for him — he just knows that music is the medium in which he expresses and shares himself with the world. And with his music and his own queer identity, Josiah hopes to change the perception of queer people in media and music, so the community can be better represented.
“There’s a lot more songs I’m working on now where I’m trying to get a deeper meaning through [them] rather than just kind of using a lot of words to say nothing,” Josiah said. “I definitely want to have a good platform to stand on and spread good messages to people like me because there’s not a lot of queer representation in rap music, which is kind of what I’m trying to get into.”
Aside from spreading good messages, Josiah wants people to learn from his experiences. So through his use of music as an outlet, and his own self-expression, Josiah hopes that his rapping can serve as a hope for others.
“I want to use my failures to help other people through similar experiences,” Josiah said. “If I make a career out of it, I want other kids like me that grow up to sort of look at me and see me as an inspiration.”
This story was originally published on U-High Midway on December 9, 2024.