Wyatt Boggs busking in the Short North in the summer of 2021. Credit: Courtesy of Wyatt Boggs
Those strolling past the Wexner Center for the Arts, Busch House or Sicilia Pizza may encounter Wyatt Boggs busking on the street.
Boggs, a fourth-year in music and an aspiring pop musician, performs on the streets, or busks, around campus to grow more comfortable with performing live, he said. Boggs said he established his presence as a musician online via Instagram and his own website.
“I’m pretty new to pop music and stuff, and so recently I’ve been just busking outside and kind of getting better at playing it and performing in front of people,” Boggs said. “Now I’m sort of in the early practices of writing my first pop album.”
Jason Brasure, band director at Clearfork Valley High School, Boggs’ alma mater, said music is not a new endeavor for Boggs.
“He had done a fair amount of writing and composition arranging in middle school on guitar,” Brasure said. “It was all very rudimentary, but at the time, it was demonstrative of an ear and an inner sense of music that was pretty precocious for his age.”
For a long time, Boggs said his passions were rooted in orchestral, classical composition. However, recently Boggs said he has taken inspiration from artists such as Billie Eilish to make the shift toward pop music while still maintaining his initial interests in the field.
“I thought, ‘Well you know, that’d be interesting,’ that sort of hybrid between what I like about writing and performing orchestral music with what I like about producing and lyrical writing for pop music,” Boggs said.
Tucker Boggs, Wyatt Boggs’ older brother, said music has served as a way for him to bond with his younger sibling.
“It’s one of the things we always end up talking about when we see each other,” Tucker Boggs said. “He’s always sending me music that he thinks is cool, or pieces that he’s been writing. We’ll just have, like, supremely nerdy music theory talks every time I come home.”
By creating a way for his family to bond and serving as one of his primary interests for years, Wyatt Boggs said music has had a massive impact on his life, and he hopes to leave a mark on the industry, too.
“You have a lot of self-destructive behaviors that seem to be romanticized in that music. And also, you know, a lot of sexualization and objectifying of women, which I feel like that’s sort of going backwards and sort of influencing popular culture in a very negative way,” Wyatt Boggs said. “I want to change that and sort of create and influence pop music to have more of a purpose, rather than just being purely for enjoyment.”
Within the cutthroat nature of the music industry, Brasure said Wyatt Boggs’ determination has revealed how serious he is about pursuing music.
“The field is changing very rapidly, and I very much admire anybody who is looking at that field and how quickly it’s changing and they’re willing to navigate those waters,” Brasure said. “I think it’s admirable.”
It’s not by pure luck that Wyatt Boggs has been able to create a name for himself online. Tucker Boggs said his brother has a unique gift for music and his ambition has led to his online recognition.
“His brain is just on a different level. It’s crazy,” Tucker Boggs said. “I think he started playing my piano when I was in high school and, like two weeks later, was writing full symphonies on it. He just has this, like, ability to pick up an instrument and figure it out and immediately know how to do it.”
As his music begins to gain popularity and his Instagram following increases, Wyatt Boggs said he is glad to know his songs are reaching people.
“Just knowing that someone is impacted and feels a certain way and likes my music and it moves them, it makes me feel like I’m helping the world in some way or helping someone or enriching someone’s life,” Wyatt Boggs said. “It’s a good feeling.”
