Born in Ann Arbor, Mich., but raised in the Triangle, Rowsey was an accomplished musician and swimmer in high school, a Jackie Robinson Scholar at UNC and an insurance underwriter on Wall Street.
He now works as both an admissions counselor at Kenan-Flagler Business School and an emerging hip-hop artist under his stage moniker (J) Rowdy. But the divergent paths he’s pursued are united by his personal philosophy.
“I’m trying to show that you don’t need to be in a box. For so long, I’ve been told I’m too black to swim or that I talk too white to rap or that it’s not ‘black’ to play violin,” Rowsey said. “I feel like I’ve been put on this earth to destroy people’s concept of that mold — to show that there is no box.”
Drained by the rigor of a full-time job in New York, Rowsey said he was artistically stifled. When introspection confirmed that he wanted to pursue music, Rowsey seized the chance to come home.
Since then, Rowsey has applied his passion for hip-hop beyond the Pit Cypher and his career. On Oct. 17, he worked with UNC professors to revive the endangered Eastern Cherokee dialect, spoken almost exclusively by senior generations of Cherokee people.
Linguistics professor Misha Becker said children respond positively to language revitalization when social prestige of the language is demonstrated, like when Rowsey rapped in the dialect.
“When Josh was working with the kids — of course, they were kind of shy — they didn’t just jump up and rap with him,” Becker said.
But that didn’t stop him.
