I discovered the work of videographer Josh Horton through local music-media outlet Real Ones, which began as a podcast in 2020 and evolved to produce concerts and shoot interviews with local and national artists. Horton has shot Real Ones interviews at several festivals. He immersed himself in Chicago’s overlapping hip-hop and R&B scenes after graduating from Washington University in 2021 and returning here from Saint Louis. In those couple years he’s gotten involved in a lot of projects, and he’s recently begun collaborating with rapper and chef SoloSam, whose B-Eats parties bridge the worlds of music making and culinary arts.
As told to Leor Galil
I got interested in making videos in late 2017. I was in my first year of college at the time, and I didn’t really have a great idea of what I wanted to do as a career. But I got inspired by watching a lot of music content on YouTube. Music videos, performance videos, and interviews—tour blogs, even. I’m also really into listening to music. I’ve always been a passionate fan of the music scene, and getting a behind-the-scenes look at the industry was always interesting to me.
It wasn’t until summer of 2018 that I picked up a camera and started actually shooting videos. Around that time, my brother also got into making music, so I was just shooting his music videos. We were just running around—it was really fun. I was just shooting random things with my friends. But it wasn’t ever something too serious, and I wasn’t ever getting paid anything for it.
Then in 2019, I started shooting shows—like, performances. Me and my friends were going to a lot of underground rap shows. So I began either hitting up friends I knew who were throwing shows or who were performing—that were artists—who could let me shoot. That was really cool, just to get into the scene there, but it didn’t really turn into much. I was still going back and forth from school, between Chicago and Saint Louis.
It felt hard to find opportunities when I was first getting into it. I didn’t really know much; I didn’t think my stuff looked that good. But I was just trying to shoot as much as I could. I was doing stuff while I was at school as well. At the time, I had a couple different video internships through that, so I was getting onto some sets—just learning how the industry worked. That was my college experience.
I was a film major. I graduated in 2021. So when I moved back home to Chicago, since then I’ve been connecting a lot more and building a base here. That’s when I connected with people like Juicebox Collective. They threw some DJ events and day parties in Chicago.
I had a couple friends that put me on, and I ran with it. One of my brother’s friends, his name is LaSalle Grandeur—that’s his artist name. He put me on with Juicebox Collective; he just knew that I was into shooting videos. I pulled up to shoot one of their events, and I feel like just being consistent in my work, they [kept] hiring me.
That’s how people started to notice my work, and then that’s how I got put on with Real Ones. That’s been a great connection for me, because they’re also running around the city trying to make genuine connections. Stuff like that—being a genuine person and being consistent in my work—has gotten me a long way.
I’m really into cameras in general. I work at a camera store and rental house in Chicago, Dodd Camera. I started that in April of this year. I’ve always been into the technical aspect of things. As I’ve learned more, especially this year, I’ve been feeling like I’m growing really quickly and getting better at what I’m doing.
It doesn’t have to be about making [the video] look good—it’s really just about the story you’re telling. I’m trying to focus on both aspects, but I’m trying to really focus on the stories at this point. I’m really into documentary work as well, so I feel like giving people that fly-on-the-wall perspective on what it’s like to be in the scene is really interesting to me. That’s the visual language I’m trying to develop, as far as being present but not being intrusive and seeing how this music scene works.
This past year I’ve been doing a lot of production-assistant work for corporate jobs, and that kinda turned into, through connections, a big music video. An assistant camera [operator] that I work with, he’s also a director of photography. His name’s Patrick Dowdle. He knew I was interested in the music scene. When he got the opportunity to work on a Vic Mensa and Chance the Rapper video [“$wish”] earlier this year, he just hit me up: “Yo, they’re looking for a production assistant.”
Doing this—being a PA and trying to be the best PA I could—the producers really liked me. I’ve been hired back on a lot of big music videos in the city. The things in 2017 that inspired me—it’s been a full-circle thing, this whole year, as far as actually seeing how those things are made. I’m still trying to get to a better place myself, as far as shooting those types of things. I wanna do AC [assistant camera] work—I’m very inspired by all the stuff I saw on a lot of those sets.
I was definitely mystified for the first couple years, coming into things, and I feel like there’s a lot of stuff I don’t know, especially on these high-level productions. But people are genuine; people are willing to reach out.
I think mentors are really important. If you can find someone that can show you the ropes a little bit—a lot of people in this industry can be really nice and really helpful, if you reach out to them. At first I wasn’t super into reaching out to people. I would wait for stuff to come to me. Just being able to actually ask these questions and figure out technical things—or even just our creative process—has been something I’ve been trying to do.
I’ve been shooting a lot with Real Ones. They put me on with this artist, SoloSam, who got me into shooting the Summer Smash festival this year; we were shooting videos for Lyrical Lemonade, and that has been amazing. That was my first time shooting a festival. So the fact that I was able to come in there and shoot interviews for them and be around all of my favorite artists at the time was a wild weekend for me.
I got on with SoloSam—I shot one event, one of his B-Eats events he’s done. He was like, “I need you to shoot more things for me,” and we were doing Summer Smash. It was a crazy experience, and we’re gonna work on more things together. With Real Ones we shot two festivals—one day we were at From the ’Go shooting interviews, and then the Silver Room Block Party shooting a couple things. So that was really fun.
At first I didn’t know how to go about making friends in the industry, but it’s really come naturally, I guess. I’m still trying to connect with a lot more people. I’m trying to be nice to everybody I meet. I really, genuinely want to have interest in what other people are doing and recognize if you want to work with someone—how they can help you out, how you can help them out.
If you want to make anything collaborative, it’s all about listening and being someone’s assistant—so they want to work with you more, so they know what they’re getting. That’s how it’s been recently for me, the past couple of months.
I don’t even know how far I want to take this stuff. I feel like a lot of times people will get comfortable where they’re at, so I’m trying to push myself. Like I said earlier, I’m interested in documentary work. I’m trying to make something in the future: some type of behind-the-scenes with an artist or a couple artists.
I have a lot of [other] interests as well. I’m interested in sports. That’s why I got into videography in the first place, is because I was watching so much media—just of everything in general. I’m like, “I could make something like this.” At the end of the day, I’m just really into making visual stuff. I was into 3D animation a bit in college; I’m trying to get back into more of that. Being a creative has been something that’s been fun for me, and I don’t know exactly where I’m going to take it.
