Durham-based rapper and hip-hop artist Rowdy, known to his friends and family as Kevin Joshua “Josh” Rowsey Jr. is using his music to introduce a bridge for the gaps in a North Carolina still somewhat divided by rampant race and income politics.
Having grown up in Durham and attended school at predominantly white institutions, some of which were private schools, Rowdy’s unique perspective as a black man in a wealthy, white world is, if not directly relatable, definitely accessible to a wide variety of audiences.
On his new debut album, “The Return of Black Wall Street,” which released on June 9 of this year, he raps, “I wake up every single day, all black and misunderstood, since the private school days, in the 6th grade, when they ask my hood. Hell no, y’all, I like Pokemon too, and if it wasn’t for this skin, I would be just like you.”
I had the opportunity to sit down and talk to him about his history and his music, and what the release of this new album means for his up-and-coming career.
How did you get into music?
“It all started, I would like to say, from poetry. I made it into the Collegiate Poetry Group at UNC my freshman year, and from there I fell in love with performing arts and expressing myself. I, naturally, got into hip-hop — obviously, rap is just rhythm and poetry. I was in the undergraduate library (when) I recorded my first mixtape, and found the members of my collective — we’re still together today; they’re in New York and in LA, and I’m here, in the Durham/Raleigh area.”
We graduated from the same high school — Cary Academy — do you think that experience in private education, as well as later on at UNC, which is a predominantly white institution, shaped you as an artist?
“You know, [at those schools] even when you’re middle class, you feel poor. And that’s not a good concept. One benefit of being at Cary Academy and being at Kenan Flagler, [is that] it did help me gain a universal perspective on not just music, but my outlook in life. I’m based in hip-hop, but I think I see truth from several different angles. One big thing [those schools] taught me was to mesh in with my surroundings, wherever I go. I’ve been exposed to, I think, every single culture that I could be. I was a black kid at a white school that spoke Chinese, AP Chinese at that. My friends range in every single color and hue. I was raised Christian, my parents are deacons at mega churches, but I’m not necessarily — not at all — intertwined with the Christian doctrine. But, my view of religion, and God and the universe, I think I can drag in from several different perspectives and connect with several different cultures.”
What is your target audience, if you have one?
“I don’t, though! That’s the crazy part. I can perform in front of little kids — I’ve had speaker series little kindergarteners to elementary school kids — but, you know, I was at Festifall in Chapel Hill, and old, you know, retired people throwin’ they hands up to my stuff. So I really think that I am starting to embody what it means to be a true universal artist at this time.”
Tell me about your first solo project.
“[‘The Return of Black Wall Street’] is my first solo project, by myself. Everything else has been either with a group, a band or with the collective itself. This is the first time where it’s just kind of me, my thoughts and my implementation of what a full project should be.”
How did that feel, how is that different from your other works?
“Amazing. It felt amazing. I finally put myself out there. It took me so long to finally get myself out there as an artist by myself and defining myself. And sometimes I was like, damn, this is taking too long, I should probably think about doing something else, but now that it’s out, and now that I can officially say this is my project, now I’m ready to attack and put myself out there. For a while, I was saying I was an artist — and I was, like I was still performing, I was doing all this crazy stuff — but I never really put my own thoughts and my own perspective out there. I never made myself vulnerable to people until this moment, and it feels amazing. And now, I have the ability to tap into the resources that I’ve been connecting with since I’ve been on this journey as an artist.”
Do you think that the fact that it’s your solo album gave you more freedom to talk about yourself, and your history?
“Oh yeah, definitely. I haven’t told too many people this, but [this album] was all done in one weekend — this whole project. Some of them were already written, but it gave me the ability to paint my own canvas, how I saw it. When you’re in a group, sometimes you got to pick what songs work, make sure everyone else gets in. But really, it was me, what do I think and what do I do. And now I’m just hungry to do the next portion of this project. It’s going to extend into another album.”
So, what are you working on, currently?
“So I’m trying to get something done by the end of July. I feel like because I have not been out as an artist as much, I want the product out there, I’ll follow up with like music videos, and then I’ll be able to sit on what I’ve worked on, built upon. What I want to do is really just have two – I want two more projects. This is a trilogy: ‘The Return of Black Wall Street,’ and I guess I’ll say it right now — I don’t know how it is — ‘The Return of Black Wall Street,’ ‘The Last Black Jedi,’ and ‘The Black Renaissance.’ ‘The Black Renaissance’ will by my major studio album, that may take a little bit longer, but ‘The [Last] Black Jedi’ will be like a mixtape — quick, but still bars; people will feel it.”
