JohnnyOsi Rises from the Ashes

Jenn Cohen | April 1, 2012 | 0 Comments

by Allison Diekhoff

I’ve had JohnnyOsi on my radar since the first time I saw him freestyle at a house party in high school. I didn’t know much about him until I saw him rap, but then I was absolutely positive about one thing: this kid was a word artist. He could do things with speech and rhythm that I had never experienced before. Forget hip-hop, my understanding of hip-hop back then was gangster rap. No, this kid was using proper English to freestyle about life, about philosophy.

Self-taught on his home computer, he has busied himself with mixing and mastering his own beats, laying down intelligent vocal tracks copied straight from his personal journals, creating his own abstract graphic artwork, and throwing it all out to the world with an air of nonchalance. Take it or leave it, it is honest and unrestrained.

Back in his first years as a musician, JohnnyOsi was young and determined to be a part of the music scene, but it was at the unfortunate expense of losing his musical identity. To be fair, what place does a middle class Italian with a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy have in hip-hop? But with Andre Benjamin as an early influence, and a talent for witty, rhythmical word arrangements, hip-hop seemed like the most likely fit, and that was just it: most likely. You can’t fit a circle into a square, and unsure of where he belonged, he molded himself into something else: JohnnyOsi became a rock musician. Fronting the band Five Sided Mind got him back on stage, even playing his dream venue, the Gothic Theatre. Unfortunately in 2009, after playing a show at Herman’s Hideaway, JohnnyOsi awoke to find himself handcuffed to a hospital bed after getting into an alcohol-related car accident (and subsequently getting a DUI). He had found himself in a profoundly pivotal moment of his life, with sobriety as the only way to move forward.

Fast-forward three years to a coffee shop by the Platte River. We sit reminiscing about the last three years since JohnnyOsi awoke in the hospital. He is sober. He is introspective. He has been a hip-hop artist–an MC–but he was not very “hip-hop.” He has been a poet, a philosopher, and a musician without a square to his circle. He has been to the depths of personal hell and back again. What he discovered is that there is no boundary, no mold to contain him. Today, JohnnyOsi is preparing to open up for one of his biggest idols at the Marquis Theater on March 17^th, Saul Williams. He has come full circle, and is beginning once again with his hip-hop roots and spoken word. He takes the stage alone–only himself to contest with, and his future plans are simple: keep writing and moving forward. There is one thing you can count on: with influences like Elliott Smith, Jeff Buckley, Radiohead, Andre Benjamin, Aesop Rock, Sage Francis, Cedric Bixler-Zavala, and Saul Williams, JohnnyOsi’s future will be original, organic, and both painfully and humorously honest.

4/12 Herman’s Hideaway

www.JohnnyOsi.com