The background music in many of Boston-based hip hop artist Ishan’s songs is what gives them a fresh sound that makes them stand out, but his intelligent lyrics are stunningly compelling.
His beats often have an old-school style that pays tribute but, in many ways, rivals that particular era of hip hop, born from a need to express emotions that had not yet been set to music.
Like much good art, however, it often come from a place of pain.
“I started music as an outlet from my experiences,” says the artist, born Oba Oseghali, who dealt with issues both at home and at school.
He grew up in the predominantly white community of Salem, New Hampshire, where his single dad worked three jobs to keep a roof over the heads of Ishan and his siblings. He was just six years old when they moved to Salem, and it would shape much of his childhood.
Racism was rampant throughout his school years, including taunts about his name, Oba – which means King in his father’s home country of Nigeria – but Ishan fought to overcome it, along with abuse and depression, and each issue is traced through his honest, riveting lyricism.
He recounted his story in a speech recorded for a Black Lives Matter event that his schedule prevented him from attending.
“My first year in Salem was the first year I felt racism,” he said. “I remember being confused, I remember being sad, but now I’m just mad. I was only eight years old, and I was being shown that I didn’t matter.”
He continued by saying that racism is so deeply rooted in Salem, that “if you put a white hood over the town of Salem, I imagine it would fit so well.”
It was a troubling way to start life, but he began using music to express himself when he was in 7th grade, and he has since released two albums as well as his latest work, the EP “RANDUM ThOUGHTS,” his most successful release to date.
Through music, he found a way to compartmentalize his pain, his sorrow, his rage.
But pain, no matter how deep, hardly defines the buoyant rapper, and it is not where Ishan’s story ends.
On “RANDUM ThOUGHTS,” there are upbeat moments of optimism, reflecting the diversely successful life Ishan has made for himself at just 21. The piano-infused old-school “BaNG” is a traditional take on classic hip hop songs about success, and although it hints at the danger that once came with it, as witnessed during the deadly East Coast-West Coast feuds of the 1990s, it has an overall upbeat vibe.
On “Young,” an earlier work with an angelic backdrop and a church setting juxtaposed with the street, he says, “From a young age, my brother told me not to settle for less.”
Ishan hasn’t. In addition to touring – he’s played Boston, New York City, Atlanta, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and Washington DC and has opened for Tory Lanez, Sleepy Hallow, and Dusty Locane – he is attending Northeastern University on a full scholarship and works as a research associate at Oncorus Immunology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is currently studying the use of the Herpes Simplex-1 virus as an immunotherapy against cancer.
