“I wish I was that cool,” he said. “It sounds better if I say that. I actually lost my scholarship.”After Wilson stood out on both the track and cross country teams at Eisenhower High School in Blue Island, the 2013 graduate got two scholarships. An academic one covered his tuition at Clark Atlanta University, while the athletics one covered room and board.
He also became active in the fight against police brutality and a prison abolitionist. By the time he was 20 he was part of a delegation that went to Switzerland to give a shadow report to the United Nations. But circa 2016, he got serious about his music. "Disco Ric" Wilson is pictured in the 2013 yearbook at Eisenhower High School, where he was known as Richard Wilson. Teachers who knew him them use him as an example of how hard work can pay off for current students.
By 2017, Wilson performed his first show at Schubas in Chicago, and the next year he was on the road. In 2020 he was booked for Lollapalooza, which would have been huge if not for the pandemic that slowed down the whole world — and Wilson’s momentum. He moved back in with his family, went to London for a year and returned at the end of 2021.
“It makes it real,” she said. “It makes it valid and not just some story about a random person. He was sitting right here.”“It’s remarkable,” Jacklin said. “It’s what you want for everybody, just to see somebody who is a good person getting good things. … I think the sky’s really the limit for him.” “His individuality came out,” Miguez said. “He was never shy, never cared about what people thought about him. He was always himself.”Miguez has kept up with Wilson’s successes. He said there is a pride in seeing any of his students go on to college, start families or get great careers, but this is the first time he has watched a former student become a bona fide celebrity.