Josh Reis
Star
Parris Chariz
I came up in an environment where nobody’s trying to get married. Everybody just trying to “sow their royal oats.” My friends that I went to middle school and high school with, before we even made it to 21, they got two kids or three kids. But that’s the thing that I seen. These are things I was a part of. These are the communities that I was in. To me, it was normal. To me, it was just how life was.
Then getting to see another side, I started to understand, this lifestyle is taught to us, this isn’t right. That’s why mental health is such a huge thing to keep yourself whole. Now that I understand mental health, I was dealing with depression when I was like 9,10 years old. I didn’t know how to talk about it or I didn’t know what I was feeling because nobody ever said the word “depression” to me or, “How are you feeling?”
Several different factors led me to an unhealthy relationship with a girl while I was in college. We was friends for maybe a year and a half. We were just exclusively talking for like a year and then we dated for eight months. The exclusively talking part was better than the actual dating part, when I actually asked her to be my girl. The talking part just came because of the position I was in leaving school and stuff like that, I felt like being in a relationship super committed was just bad for me at the time. We had a misunderstanding, it was some strifing in there and I felt taken advantage of. I thought she liked me when in reality I was just a convenience. I don’t know, I try not to think about it.
Josh Reis
But I was able to get out of that situation and realize my worth as a man. That’s where my new song “Star” comes from. My pastor definitely helped me find my confidence just through timely sermons, which is ultimately God. Praying about the situation, too, just praying that I can see where I went wrong. Because some people don’t even see where they go wrong. So praying that I can discern when I’m wrong just as much as I can discern when somebody else is wrong or when somebody else is acting weird, is very helpful for me maintaining my vision of myself.
Looking back, I wasn’t totally blameless. I wasn’t blameless at all in the situation. Now that I understand my confidence, I understand my wrongs, I understand my rights and I can see where I went wrong in certain things and see where I went wrong on my approach to the relationship. Moving forward, I’m intentional about changing those things when it’s the most difficult — have different actions when those same type of things that led me into that bad relationship come up. Because we all get tempted. We all have those voids in our life that we are trying to fill. But it’s about how you react to the temptation. Not that you just don’t get tempted.
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My confidence has also grown because I’m always checking my motives on why I’m trying to do something. If I’m always checking my motives, I’m always doing something with a pure heart and no one can question me. I didn’t used to think like that, so doing those things give me motivation to keep doing it. My friends as well, I have my brothers, my team around me, I’m open with them, I try to be open and honest as possible about the shortcomings that I have and my winning times that I have as well. We carry each other’s burdens and maintain that mental health that I had no idea I was struggling with as a kid. So just having people around me that keep me accountable and just keep it a hunnid with me and let me know when I’m doing something crazy or just making wrong decisions to put myself into doing something crazy. And definitely reading the Word, staying out of certain things. Man, it’s a lot of factors that have helped me build my confidence into knowing I’m a star.
Josh Reis
Even the fact that I’m a big fan of fashion has evolved as I grew in my confidence. I care about clothes. If you see my page or just know about me, I’ve always cared about clothes, I’ve always cared about what I look like as far as appearance. Especially being 6’4” and always being a bigger dude, it’s harder to find clothes and you get made fun of. So you try to make up for it. How I made up for it was just being fresher than everybody else or just being one of the freshest dudes. Of course, at first it was an egotistical thing to try to cover up for my insecurities, but now I genuinely enjoy shopping. I enjoy certain clothes that I wear. I enjoy waiting for the latest drops, looking up new fashion designers and getting things that everybody doesn’t have, exclusivity-type things. So that’s just a part of my life. It’s not something that I’m trying to flex. If I find a fire outfit and you feel a way about my fire outfit, that says a lot about you, not me just because I enjoy to dress nice.
Me understanding that I am a star means that I know I have influence and I have people that look up to me that value my opinion and things that I say. I know that can be tainted if I choose to be irresponsible in certain situations with the opposite sex. So I take that seriously. Like I said, I just have to take steps forward in choosing the right decision when it’s the most difficult. And in those times, I feel like that’s when you can know that you’ve changed because you’re aware of the fact that you’re even thinking about making the right decision against temptation, compromising your self worth for a convenient relationship. Most people don’t even get to that type of thought process. So just understanding that I’m not going to be perfect, but as long as I am progressing and making the right decisions to better myself, that’s all I can worry about, not trying to portray perfection or be perfect.
That’s exactly how “Star” fits into my upcoming album. It’s literally dead smack in the middle. It’s almost a turning point. Basically it’s a place in the album where the main guy is understanding that he is what he believes he is regardless of how this female is treating you, regardless of how she’s trying to play it. You just gotta understand that that’s just what it is and you gotta be ok with that. The album continues where he faces another battle later on. It’s a different kind of battle, but he battles again until finally, after that, he’s totally on the other side like nah, I finally realize I’m a star.
Listen to my new single, "Star," below.