Jesse Bosco was born and raised in Guelph, Ontario, in a Sicilian family. He spent much of his childhood at his Nonna and Nonno’s house before a chapter in Toronto’s bar scene in his twenties. Rap is now his main form of expression. He writes his lyrics himself and uses Suno as a creative production tool. EV readers first met him through our Found in the Inbox feature, New on EV: Jesse Bosco, ‘Seen Through Me’. Here he talks about that song, written a couple of months after his Nonna passed away, and about recognizing himself in his Nonno.
EV: What was going on in your life when "Seen Through Me" started taking shape, and what does that title mean to you?
Jesse Bosco: I wrote "Seen Through Me" a couple of months after my Nonna passed away unexpectedly at the end of May. I'm not great with timelines these days, so I can't give you an exact date, but it was around that period. The idea actually started with something fairly ordinary. I caught myself standing at my window, staring outside, but not really looking at anything. My mind was somewhere else, thinking about things that had happened maybe 15 years earlier. It made me realize I'd done this in practically every home I'd lived in. I'd stand there, looking out the window, while my thoughts took me somewhere completely different. Then I started thinking about my Nonno. When I was a kid, I used to see him sitting or standing by the window for long stretches of time. I assumed he was watching people walk by, looking at the grass he'd just cut, or watching the mailman. I never really questioned it. It wasn't until I caught my own reflection in the window, with almost the same expression and posture, that something clicked. I realized he probably wasn't watching what was outside either. He was somewhere in his own thoughts, looking back on things, carrying things he couldn't necessarily share with anyone. My Nonna always told me that my Nonno and I were exactly alike. Not just in the good ways, but in how we treated people, how we hid things, how we responded when we were hurt, how long we held grudges, and even how much it took to make us lose our patience. She understood me better than anyone I've ever known. She'd been married to him for so many years that she recognized those similarities in me before I really understood them myself. Losing her made that connection even more meaningful. At the time, I was also dealing with a tremendous amount of physical and mental strain. I'd suffered a serious disc injury, had unsuccessful spine surgery, and was living with constant pain. There were days I could barely move, never mind leave the house or be the active dad I wanted to be for my four kids. There weren't really any breaks from it, physically or mentally. The title "Seen Through Me" has a few meanings. It's about recognizing yourself in someone who came before you. It's about realizing that what you thought you were observing as a child was actually something much deeper. And it's about the people who understand you so well that they can see parts of you that you haven't figured out yourself yet.
EV: Walk us through how "Seen Through Me" was made: where was it recorded, who was involved, and which parts did you handle yourself?
Jesse Bosco: There wasn't a traditional recording session or a group of musicians working together in a studio. I wrote the lyrics myself and developed the concept, structure, rhyme schemes, and overall creative direction. I use Suno as a creative production tool for the generated vocals and musical arrangement. I work through different styles, descriptions, and generations, trying to get the sound and delivery as close as possible to what I hear in my head. I'm very involved in shaping the final result. The writing, the personal experiences, the story, and the creative decisions behind the song are mine. The production process is different from traditional recording, but it allows me to take something that starts as an idea in my head and turn it into a complete song.
EV: What moment during the making of "Seen Through Me" changed where it was heading, and how did you respond to it?
Jesse Bosco: The biggest moment was actually the realization that the song wasn't just about my Nonno. It was about recognizing myself in him. Initially, I was thinking about those memories of seeing him at the window when I was growing up. But once I caught my own reflection and recognized the same expression, I started looking at those memories differently. I began thinking about what might have been going through his mind all those years ago. I couldn't ask him anymore, and I couldn't know exactly what he was thinking. But I understood the feeling. I knew what it was like to be physically looking out a window while mentally revisiting things from years earlier. I knew what it was like to carry thoughts you don't necessarily share because explaining them might make things harder, or because you don't feel understood. That realization changed the emotional direction of the song. It stopped being simply a memory of someone I'd lost and became a story about the similarities we sometimes don't recognize until we're older.
EV: Where do you come from, and how has that place, and the people and music around you there, shaped the way you write and sound?
Jesse Bosco: I was born and raised in Guelph, Ontario, in a Sicilian family. Growing up, Italian music was a big part of the household. My mom was a single parent for most of my childhood and worked as a flight attendant, so she was away quite a bit. I spent a huge amount of my childhood at my Nonna and Nonno's house. It was right behind my elementary school, so I'd go there every day for lunch. More than half my life was spent in that house. It was a place where I felt safe, and a lot of my earliest memories and experiences came from there. I spent my twenties living in Toronto after leaving home and setting out on my own. That was a completely different chapter. I came out of my shell, developed confidence, and really started living life. I became part of the bar scene and was around live music constantly. I met a lot of different people and learned a lot from those experiences. Eventually that chapter came to an end, but the memories and the people stayed with me. Musically, I've always been influenced by a wide range of genres. My Italian roots, my mom's taste in music, and the music that was popular throughout the 1990s all played a part. I grew up appreciating songs where the vocals and lyrics could really make you feel something. I still carry those influences into what I create. Even though rap is the main way I express myself now, I don't think my sound comes from one particular genre. It's more like taking everything I've absorbed over the years and trying to bring it together in a way that sounds like me.
EV: What first pulled you into making music, and what keeps you coming back to it now?
Jesse Bosco: I've always had music in my head, even before I considered myself someone who could make it. When I was in Grade 9, I wanted to learn drums badly. My mom was raising me on her own, and there wasn't really the space or the appetite in the house for a drum kit. It just wasn't in the cards at the time. Eventually, I had a friend who played drums and had proper lessons. One day he explained the basics to me: the bass drum, hi-hat, and snare. We didn't have a drum kit, so we used our hands and feet. We'd slap our thighs and stomp the floor to recreate the different sounds. He showed me how to play "You Shook Me All Night Long" by AC/DC, and I went home and practised it constantly. Every chance I got, I was tapping out rhythms. I gradually started adding more complicated patterns. A couple of years later, I finally sat down at a real drum kit and realized that everything I'd been practising had transferred. I was instantly hooked. I'm not claiming to be an amazing drummer, but I'm proud that I taught myself. That experience probably explains a lot about how I write now. The beat often comes first. I'll hear a rhythm, then a flow or delivery starts developing around it. Sometimes entire songs begin as a sound in my head, with maybe 20 percent lyrics and 80 percent humming. I always felt I could write rap if I really tried, but I never took it seriously. I had no intention of performing, I didn't have anyone around me I felt comfortable showing my lyrics to, and I couldn't imagine how I'd ever turn those ideas into fully produced songs. Eventually, my circumstances changed. I was dealing with disability and chronic pain, and I needed something constructive to focus on. At the same time, the technology finally existed to help me turn what I heard in my head into something real, without needing an entire team of people or access to a recording studio. I started taking the writing seriously, challenging myself with every song. I wanted each concept to be different, the vocabulary to be stronger, the rhymes to be more intricate, and the story to remain entertaining and relatable without losing the listener. When your body starts limiting what you can do, being trapped with your own thoughts can become its own battle. Sometimes it can be more dangerous to be locked in a room with your thoughts than to be locked in a room with a lion. It depends on the person. Writing has given me somewhere to put all of that energy. It's become one of the healthiest things I can focus on, and that's what keeps me coming back.
EV: Many of our readers first heard you through our Found in the Inbox feature. What would you like someone hearing "Seen Through Me" for the first time to know about you?
Jesse Bosco: I'd want them to know that the stories are real, even when the way I tell them is creative. I'm not really interested in writing songs just to fill space or repeat something people have heard a thousand times. I like giving myself a concept and seeing how far I can take it. I challenge myself with vocabulary, internal rhymes, different rhyme patterns, and storytelling, but I never want the technical side to get in the way of the actual story. I want people to be able to follow what I'm saying, catch the details, and maybe hear something differently the second time around. I'm also still learning. I didn't come into this with a music career planned out or years of studio experience. I'm someone who has always loved music, spent years hearing beats and melodies in my head, and eventually found a way to bring those ideas to life. A lot of what I write comes from personal experiences, people I've known, and things I've spent years thinking about. I just try to find an interesting way to tell those stories.
EV: What comes next for you after "Seen Through Me": new songs, live dates, collaborations, or something else you're working toward?
Jesse Bosco: I have plenty more stories I want to tell, and I'm constantly working on new concepts. I like approaching every song as a new challenge. I don't want to keep writing the same song with different lyrics. I want to experiment with different perspectives, storytelling styles, rhyme schemes, and sounds while still keeping the writing at the centre of it. I'm also continuing to learn as I go. There are things I want to improve, ideas I haven't figured out how to execute yet, and songs I've already written that I'm still working toward bringing to life. For me, this is about continuing to create, developing my own sound, and getting better with every song. I never expected to be doing this in the first place, so I'm enjoying the fact that I finally have a way to turn all those ideas in my head into something other people can hear.
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