Vernon Hills High School is host to many talented individuals ranging from those who excel at athletics as well as those who have found music to be their passion.  It is often a rare case when one finds a combination of the two in a single individual.  That is such the case for Jay Holloway, a junior at Vernon Hills, who is a varsity level athlete in Basketball and Track/Field.  Although being athletically gifted, Jay has found that he has an immense passion for making music rap music.

Being a musician at all is extremely arduous in itself, but it becomes even harder when you throw high school into the mix.  Trying to juggle a social life, athletics, academics, and music can be challenging for some but not for Jay.  Seeing an opportunity to achieve his full potential, Jay began to start writing music despite all of the adversity.  “When I first started, people began to think it was a joke, but when they would hear the things I made online they began to really appreciate the music that I created.”  With the support of his friends and his passion for the recording arts, Jay began to work relentlessly to achieve his goal.  “Everytime I get an idea for a rap, or something pops into my head that sounds good for a particular song, I write it down in this Google doc that I have so I don’t forget.  It’s about ten to eleven pages long and I only plan on putting more material in it.”  Jay has been vehemently putting in work every day towards a new mixtape that is to come out on the first day of finals at the end of this year.  “I want to release King of the Hills on the first day of finals so it gives people a nice mental break during the week.”

Drawing inspiration from such famous rappers as Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole because their style entails that they rap about real world problems instead of vain and opulent things such as cars and money.  Jay wishes to reflect his own philosophies and views on the world through this particular rapping style so that he can stand apart from all of the other rappers who seem to just rap about, what Jay describes as, “Destructive things like guns and violence.”

“If my album is as successful as I want it to be, I plan on making a music video with some of my friends over the summer.” Jay has also been working with some other students in the school such as Eric Slovak who has donned the rap name Etalicized, meant to parody Jay’s name Capitol Jay.