Nathan Labossiere is a 20-year-old commercial music major at FAU. But he’s also known as Syke, an upcoming West Palm Beach-based rapper.

Syke is fresh on the South Florida scene with seven months of experience and is working to get his music and his name out to the public, as his tracks are on streaming sites like Spotify. He has released ten professionally recorded songs so far.

Syke’s goal is to skip the “stereotypical SoundCloud rapper phase.”

“I tried to move out of the whole microphone in the closet and everything … I had a bunch of songs pre-recorded but they were in the closet and I was like ‘I’m not putting these out,’ and so I re-recorded them once I got in a professional studio,” he said.

The South Florida rap scene offers a landscape for budding artists to flourish. Famous rappers like Kodak Black, the late XXXTENTACION, Ski Mask the Slump God, YNW Melly, and Denzel Curry were all born and raised in the heart of South Florida.  

Syke’s debut EP, “The Duality, Pt. 1,” came out in November 2018, and is 21 minutes of party-themed songs with production quality similar to that of his contemporaries

The opening song “Syko” features a “haunting” vocal sample over pummeling bass and the closing track “Chum Bucket” starts with a sleepy series of notes that eventually underline a quick beat.  

Syke cites Tyler, the Creator, Ski Mask The Slump God, A$AP Rocky, and $uicideboy$ as some of the inspirations of his EP.

He’s not a one trick pony, however. He has some more tunes coming out soon.

In his follow-up project, “The Duality, Pt. 2,” Syke plans to show a more thoughtful, conscious side, he said. He lists artists such as Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, and Logic as influences on his current direction, and said that the new music will be released soon.

Nathan’s journey as both a student and a rapper looking to get himself out there has been arduous.

“It’s been pretty hard, I’ve had to mold my schedule into something that fit enough space for the music to be involved. But at the same time, it helps because the classes I’ve taken have helped me with the music, like audio engineering and programming.”

You can stream Syke’s music on, Spotify, Apple Music, and SoundCloud, or follow him on Instagram (@thisyke) and Twitter (@Issyke).

Lucien Griffin is a contributing writer with the University Press. For more information regarding this or other stories, email @[email protected] or tweet him at @mailbugibson