Stoked PR

It’s pretty poetic that the one and only thing not stolen from Josh Osho’s hostel was his guitar. Following a quick trip to ‘mum’s favourite’ Iceland to grab some essentials for his first night’s stay at the Ebenezer ‘Hotel’ (in fact a halfway house in Brixton), the 16 year-old returned to find his tiny room emptied of clothes, sheets, towels… everything, in fact, apart from his guitar. Perhaps the thieves had a conscience – maybe they just weren’t musically minded – but we can thank them in some respects for spurring the budding songwriter into action. “It stank, there was no lock on the door… everything was gone. So I wrote ‘Ebenezer Hotel’,” Osho recalls. The song details how young people can slip through the cracks in society. “I was lost in high-rise/ And my soul was mine to sell,” it goes. “To the left is a man, to the right a boy in school… I had to dance with the devil just to save myself.”

At just 20 years-old, Josh Osho has the life experiences of a person twice his age. With an intensely spiritual integrity and an undeniable commercial appeal, Osho makes classic songwriting look absolutely effortless. Yet, it’s been far from an easy ride for the young singer and songwriter, which can be seen, heard and felt in his music – the beautiful lament of ‘Highlight Of My Day’, the elegiac ‘S.O.S’, the future hit ‘Redemption Days’ and the absolutely massive ‘Birthday’. Underpinned by one of the finest pop-soul voices to come out of the UK in years, Josh has an innate ability to impart life lessons with a profound mind and a pop sensibility. “Music gives me an opportunity to get people thinking a bit more,” he says. “If people, especially in the western world, just sat down and thought a little bit each day, their life would be so much richer.” He considers this. “I just want to get people thinking.”

Josh was bought up in south London; his parents – who now both help young people to better themselves – split when he was young. His Nigerian born father was a boxer and in a Ska band, Forbidden Routes, later renamed Positive Routes. He now runs a youth learning centre and is a mentor to young children in the south London area. His Northern Irish mother, whose father was Nigerian, came to the UK when she was 19, working as everything from a nanny to a cleaner and a social worker. As a young boy growing up in Lambeth, Josh was encouraged by his parents to be a thinker, to question and to be socially conscious. He loved school, was good at English and football, and accompanied his mum to her twice-weekly church outings. But he wasn’t always able to avoid the inevitable negativities that life in London thrusts upon vulnerable teenagers. “There’s so much crime in south London because there’s nothing to do,” he affirms. “When you’re growing up, you end up getting yourself into trouble because that’s all there is to do.”

Josh began writing songs early, “One of my mum’s friends was throwing out a guitar, and I started to try it out. I’ve always been really creative lyrically – I could always write stories and poems and stuff like that.” That, combined with a natural ear for melody (at home the family stereo had played everything from traditional Irish folk to Neo Soul), meant that songwriting came easily. “The way I write songs is simple,” he says. “I write what sounds nice. I’m not really into a ‘suspended 9th’ or whatever – I don’t know what that is!” Aged 15 he was picking out his own compositions, alongside finger-perfect renditions of John Legend and Ben Harper songs. “That was my biggest tool for learning the guitar, learning covers. That helped me find my own style.”

A restless, industrious mind, around this time Josh was supporting himself via a variety of jobs. “By the time I was 16 I’d done a paper round, worked in a hair salon, done an engineering apprentice, worked in a few clothes shops. I get bored really easily,” Josh says. “Obviously I was broke all the time.”

Simultaneously, Josh did something that has been repeated by teenagers since time immemorial – he started falling out with his parents. “It was a bit of a stage of rebellion for me at the time. I was doing some crazy stuff, and my mum was reacting in an equally crazy way.” Along with his older brother, there was a period where he’d leave home, then come back, then get thrown out… and so on. Josh started sleeping rough, dossing down where he could. Sometimes alone; sometimes with his brother.

Turning to the authorities for help, Josh was eventually put up in Brixton doss house The Ebenezer Hotel. “In half-a-year of walking in and out of home or whatever, everything was going down the pan.” Being in Ebenezer gave Josh a somewhat captive market and he began to sell drugs; but after a year, he realised that dealing, shoplifting and fighting wasn’t the path for him. A long way from the Christian principles instilled into him by his mother, the work ethic inspired in him by his father or the hopes for a bright future nurtured by his good schooling, Josh had a moment of clarity after getting badly beaten up one night. “Everything came together right then; being in and out of home, shotting [drug dealing], all of that chaos crystallized and as I lay on the floor, pretty much knocked out, I just saw things had to change.”

Music had stayed with him throughout, and fortunately a friend of the family stepped in. Staying at their house while they were away overseas, he began to get his life back on track. Via an online ‘new talent’ competition ‘Talent Lives’, which Josh won, he took part in the TV series Debutantes, which saw him gain valuable music business experience. After a year spent hot-housing with various different songwriting teams, Josh was brought to the attention of Island Records’ Darcus Beese, the man behind Amy Winehouse and Frankmusik. “Darcus exceeded every expectation I had of him,” enthuses Josh. “Spiritually, creatively, on every single level we clicked – if something feels right in my heart, I know it’s right.” By the start of the very next week Josh Osho had himself a deal.

Now back living with his mother, Josh’s life is about to take another change of direction; one of his musical heroes, Ghostface Killah features on his debut single, ‘Redemption Days’. Ghost asked to be involved after his Wu Tang Clan bandmate, RZA, played him his own remix of the single. Suitably impressed, Ghostface jumped on the track and the two recently shot the video together in New York, sparking up a genuine friendship in the process. Now Josh counts RZA and Ghost as executive producers on his forthcoming album, ‘L.I.F.E’ (Learning Is For Ever).

With a wealth of life experiences, music has become a cathartic experience for Josh, a means of both expressing himself and relating to others. ‘L.I.F.E’ has the power and the potential to reach the millions, but Josh is only ultimately concerned with pleasing one person. “If I get inspired to write, there’s no way I could go to sleep. ‘Oh, I’ll do it tomorrow’. It will drag me out of bed and write itself! I’ve got really high expectations for myself. I want to finish the song and be content with it myself. I don’t care if the six billion other people in the world are happy with it. If I’m not happy with it, then it’s not good enough.”