• By Katie Bennett with contributions from Malcolm Swope
  • University of Utah
Local artist leans into sober hip-hop to share a journey of recovery, build community
Local artist leans into sober hip-hop to share a journey of recovery, build community

Salt Lake City has a large recovery community, with even more communities hidden within it. For many, like Clay Josewski, a former addict and now staff member at The Other Side Academy, music has become an impactful and transformative experience.

Josewski said he now aims to spread his message of a lifestyle change through “sober hip-hop” under the name Zevskee. Over the last four years, Josewski has transformed his past, drug-induced, freestyle sessions, into projects that invoke positive change.

His journey to recovery, he said, started in 2017, when at 29 years old, the police raided his motorhome and busted him for a string of burglaries he had committed. He calls it his “God shot” because it led him to change his life.

“That was exactly what I needed in that moment to get my life together,” Josewski said.

Enter the Other Side Academy, a free life skills school for adults who have struggled with addiction, incarceration, and homelessness. In exchange for a possible 20-year prison sentence, Josewski became a student at the academy.

“Really just to beat a Prison sentence, I went to a program to get my life together, not knowing that my life would turn out the way it has.”

Josewski rediscovered hip-hop through a lens of sobriety at the academy. Now, as program staff, he weaves it into performances at the Other Side and for the broader recovery community. Events like Summer Jams and Recovery Days encourage people to express creativity and build a community with others working on sobriety. Salt Lake Recovery Days will be held on September 14th, 2024, at Jordan Park, and Summer Jams is an annual concert hosted by The Other Side Academy.

“I remember just sitting down and like just rapping about like integrity, and rapping about having accountability, and all the good things that The Other Side Academy was trying to teach me…and we sang it, and everybody like loved it.”

Fit To Recover, for example, promotes a healthy lifestyle through fitness, nutrition, creative arts, and service. On Wednesday nights, the group hosts an open mic night for anyone to come and share music, poetry, comedy, and stories in a safe and accepting space. Josewski said he has found people there who he looks up to because of how they empower others.

“Those are my people, right, so there’s no better crowd to share your music with than people that are like supportive of what you’re doing and get it.”

One of the most important things for people in recovery is to be surrounded by a supportive community, said Phil Millerberg, who works full-time at a local treatment center. Millerberg is a co-founder of Own It SLC, a performing arts event and podcast. Through these events, Millerberg said he has gotten to know Josewski and many others.

“There wasn’t really any artists being empowered at that time… we found a need for that, so we just started putting on shows ” he said, giving people a place to feel accepted and do what they love productively.

Like Millerberg, Josewski said because so many people have helped him, he wants to give back in any way he can.

“Saving lives is the new drug,” he said.

He now writes and produces music with Bronson Wagstaff, a local musician known as Rufio. They perform at recovery events around the city while learning from one another and growing their skills and morals.

Josewski shared his story this semester with University of Utah journalism students Katie Bennett and Malcolm Swope as part of an audio storytelling project with KRCL, Amplify Utah, and The Other Side Academy.

Thanks to Our Partners

The project is in partnership with KRCL 90.9 and The Other Side Academy.

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