Xavier, So Blessed

It’s late August on the New York City subway. You’re on your way to interview an artist, and when you look up from your phone, what do you see in a video ad, but that very artist posing a question.

“Have you considered Gibsonton?” Xaviersobased asks me, right there on the L train. New York’s quintessential young hip-hop producer and rapper of the 2020s, matter-of-factly promoting travel to a town on Florida’s west coast that was heretofore best known as a winter haven for circus performers, part of an Airbnb campaign aimed at Gen Zers on a budget. Random? Casually cool? Kinda weirdly Orwellian? Yes, yes, and yes.

In other words, pure Xavier.

A short time later, I am meeting the real Xav. He’s as warm and affable as his reputation and is in the middle of a fitting at Hypebeast HQ for a photo shoot the following day. It’s another busy week for him — two music videos, the release of a tour promo, the announcement of a one-off show in LA, and a performance with the brothers of his 1c34 collective, on the rooftop of Bushwick’s Elsewhere, all as he prepares for a month on the road as support on Ken Carson’s fall tour. Only the latest chapter in what has been an underground-to-increasingly-overground milestone year for the rapper.

2026 began with the release of his first studio album, Xavier, and was followed, in approximate order, by: a string of inspired music videos, including a collab with Skrillex; the second and third legs of his Riverside headline tour; a memorable car dealership-themed set at Rolling Loud; his first trip to Australia and two to Europe. Not half bad for a Golden Birthday year: Xav turns 23 on October 23rd.

“It feels insanely different,” says Xavier, as we settle into a lounge area at the Hypebeast office. “But in a way, it kind of feels normal. Cause this is what we were building towards.” A big part of this year’s leveling up had to do with Xavier’s 2025 signing with Atlantic Records, a deal that he and his larger-than-life DJ, manager, and greatest champion, DJ Rennessey, did not rush into. “Me and Ren was going back and forth with different companies,” Xav recalls. “We were kind of just preparing everything. From the beginning, we were like, ‘Yo this music shit is working, let’s just keep pushing it and see how far we can take it.’ In the beginning we were definitely avoiding the labels, the majors. Because we knew we didn’t have that leverage.”

Xav and Rennessey watched as some of his peers jumped at that first, fast money, but they held out for autonomy: a low-pressure, two-project deal. Under their own O1-chance imprint, along with longtime supporter Evilgiane’s Surf Gang and Atlantic, the agreement allows Xav to also drop singles and videos independent from the label. “We fought for that,” says Ren. “That was the biggest thing. We fought for a lot of our freedom.”

Xavier’s come up is both familiar in internet rap, and singular. A New York City native, Xavier Lopez from West 109th grew up in the aughts and teens as a Dominican kid obsessed with hip-hop and skating. His passions were fueled by his mom, a DJ, and his older brother Alex, the musician and visual artist known as Nurse, who Xav credits for his more experimental impulses. His influences ran the gamut, from Lil B and Chief Keef, to Bladee and Drain Gang, and as for many in Gen Z hip-hop, the COVID era proved suffocating, but formative. Xavier was 16 when the pandemic hit, and with online friends he created the gaming clan-turned-music collective 1c34. He quickly grew into a prolific local phenom, dropping a ton of music from 2020 on, including the seminal “Patchmade” — which anointed Xavier as a leader in a “nu-jerk” explosion, and a blueprint for music soon to come from YT, Nettspend, and fakemink.

On a pivotal night in 2022, Rennessey caught Xavier performing at an especially turnt outdoor DIY rap show, and had a lightbulb moment. The rest is underground history that is still being written: Xavier as artist, producer, and burgeoning NYC icon with Rennessey as manager, learning the ropes together, a formidable team. When tastemakers heaped praise on Xav’s irresistible 2024 tapes Keep It Goin Xav and With 2, the pair bided their time. “We were just waiting, patiently staying down until we got a good situation,” Xavier recalls.

This year, with the Xavier LP and Riverside tour, there have been new and unexpected eyes on Xavier. Rolling Stone, iconic New York station Hot 97, and the hip-hop desk at Billboard — outlets populated by rap traditionalists not known for their progressivism, who would likely never give the time of day to some of his more “aura-first” peers — all welcomed Xavier. It’s put him in a curious dual-track situation: certified A-lister in underground rap, but effectively introducing himself as a newcomer to more mainstream audiences, repeatedly retelling his backstory and often being asked to “describe” his label-resistant sound. And that’s OK with him. “I don’t mind it, because at the same time, I am a new person on these platforms,” he says. “The average Billboard reader is not listening to me, you know what I mean? A lot of these publications, their audience is not my base. So that’s why I completely understand it, and Ren helped me put it in that perspective.”

About that sound: Xavier is a palpable epitome of a New York kid, with all the self-possession that implies. You cannot grow up in our sui generis city and not be a product of it and its music. But just as true is that he’s an internet native, born two years before YouTube. So while it’s not unfair to see him as a latter-day Max B, bootstrapping a crazy run of mixtapes from COVID on, he is equally a product of the haze of Bladee and Drain Gang, the ethics of Lil B, and many more spaces he discovered growing up in the age of the algorithm. He’s a collage artist whose music pulls from cloud, low-end, electronics, and sampled internet flotsam.

What does he mean for the legacy of “New York rap,” which has in truth never been one thing, anyway? Xavier has just lurched it forward more radically. When he is asked how his music fits into the city’s musical lineage, as he has been, especially this year, he seems flattered by the inclusion, but a little flummoxed by it. When pressed to “describe” his sound, he will often default to simply “experimental.” And he credits some of that impulse to his older brother Alex, who records as Nurse.

“A lot of the things my brother used to listen to, a lot of noise music, black metal, and all those like subgenres like grindcore, all that,” Xavier recalls. “It was very experimental stuff. And – I never really liked those styles of music? But I loved the experimental-ness of it, and so I was thinking, ‘How can I make the stuff that I listen to even more experimental than what it already is?’” Anyone who thinks this year’s Xavier LP is “left field” ought to give a spin to his 2021 Store tape, more throw-it-on-the-wall-and-and-see-what-sticks essays in sound that play more as ambient than hip-hop. “I was making all those kinds of tracks where I was just like, ‘try anything,’” he says. “Like you said, kind of an ‘anything goes’ type of mentality.” He obviously identifies first and foremost as a rapper, but as a producer and writer he has no problem upending its conventions.

Those soundcrafting skills and a clear sense of where he’s headed musically — he’s described the Xavier LP as a “steppingstone” to what’s next — may help explain why he’s peaking mainstream interest when others in the Gen Z underground are not. The other reason is realness. In a world where fantasy often rules, with Xavier, what you see is what you get. Rhode Islander Demetri Demetropoulos, aka @poortfolios, is Team Xav’s videographer, in-house documentarian, and consistent creative collaborator. “In one word or phrase, I would say Xav has due diligence,” Demetri says. “I think that’s something that is noticeable from afar. I don’t think there’s ever been anyone to doubt his authenticity.”

Xavier is also authentic in his choice of restaurants. We’re off to La Dinastia, a Chino-Latino spot on 72nd St that Xav has been going to since he was a kid. To get there, it’s a nearly hour-long drive from the LES to the UWS, in traffic and a torrential rainstorm, with six of us, plus a driver packed into a luxe SUV. The good news is, that gives us plenty of time for real talk, starting with success. In a FADER documentary late last year, Xavier defined “making it” as “financial stability” and being set up “for the rest of your life,” before adding, “as long as I am enjoying the music I am making, that’s all that matters.” Fast forward six months, in an SSENSE piece, Xav was said to be considering an upgrade from an “entry-level Mercedes.” When I point out the two comments, Xavier asks me if I think one “goes against” the other. I tell him no, that both can be valid. But I do wonder, as someone who’s more known for t-shirts, skating, tagging, and good times than Rick Owens, Pateks, and fancy cars, whether he now wants things he didn’t care about before.

“Nah, I feel like I am getting stuff that I always cared about, but that’s why I feel like I didn’t make it yet though,” he says. “I know exactly what you mean, that it seems out of character with the way that I’ve been coming up. But at the same time, I’m from the trenches! I grew up seeing a lot of n*ggas come around, pop they shit, and being like, ‘Damn, I wanna do that. I want something like that for myself, I want to do this, that, and a third.’ Just cause I come from damn near nothing. My crib is crazy cause the house I grew up in felt more like a hallway without any doors. So, coming from a situation like that? I know I’ve just got to get more money.”

However much he makes, he will likely never lose his compassion for those with less — another trait that unquestionably sets Xavier apart. While the vast majority of young artists and their bottom-line-focused handlers avoid divisive topics like a third rail, Xav has zero problem speaking out: for Palestine, for LGBTQ+ fans, or to call out America’s systemic “soft slavery,” in which people with less are kept down so that the rich get richer. On 2022’s install, he said he’d slap the shit out of a “classist” and on “Patchmade,” from the same tape, declared he “can’t fuck with n*ggas if they right-wing.” He’s clearly not doing it for pats on the back, but he deserves them, nevertheless. “I don’t think you are overstating it at all,” Demetri says of Xavier’s humanitarian side. “I think Xav just has a big heart. He really does want the best for people, whether it’s the homies making music, or something in the world. It’s in the name. It comes with being based, I think.”

Indeed. He walks the based walk. But Xav is quick to dispel any idea that he is a tapped-in socio-political activist. “As far as me talking about these issues and all that bro, I’m not even that political of a person,” he admits. “But like you said, I just care about people. That’s it. And if there’s a way that I can speak for these injustices, and express how I feel on ‘em, I’mma do it. If I have a platform then why not? Why not express these things?”

He adds that there are some who question his social commentary. “Like, there are certain fans that do find it weird that I talk about certain issues, because I’m a rapper,” he says. “And I’m getting money. I don’t really know what to say about that.” I tell him there’s nothing to say about it, except that the notion that you can’t have money and still care about people is ridiculous. “Facts,” he replies. “But there are certain people who will just call it bullshit.”

As we head up FDR Drive in rain so hard it feels like we’re in a car wash, I remind Xavier that the first time we met was a brief hello at a Nettspend show in late 2024. I distinctly remember seeing him exiting Irving Plaza that night, and spending so much time chatting and taking pictures with the crush of fans outside that all I could think was, “Man of the people.” It tracked with the accessible way in which he’s generally moved over this past half-decade. But as his star has risen, sometimes the man of the people needs his space. “When I am up to it, I try to take every opportunity to chill with the fans,” he explains. “But I’ll be honest, sometimes I’m not feeling up to it. And I feel like the fans will be mad at me like they’re being disrespected. Sometimes it is a lot for me, though.”

He’s also no stranger to parasocial fans. “I experience it a lot. For sure,” he says. “And they be crazy, too. You ever met someone that’s a fan of you, but then they kind of stuck around for too long?” Um, yes. “I don’t mind when people say, ‘What’s up?’ But then some people don’t get the gist of when you meet someone for the first time, it’s like, ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ you know?”

The Pride of 109th will soon get his personal space – and maybe upgrade that ride. He is planning to decamp for “six months” to — yes — Los- fucking-Angeles. When I express concern about our homegrown Gotham king, young rap’s perfect embodiment of Mamdani-era New York going Hollywood, Xavier laughs.

“It’s funny you should say that,” he says. “Because I probably hate LA as much as you do. But I like the idea of being able to live in a house. I never lived in a house, I always grew up in apartments. And I feel like LA is one of the places where I feel like I can get more work done. I can pull up to Atlantic [Records], you feel me? Go talk to them, see what’s up. There’s hella studios — more than here. That’s really the reason why, and I feel like it’s a good place to be out the way.”

Well then. That means this may be Xav’s last trip to venerable La Dinastia for a while. The monsoon has subsided by the time we pull up to the restaurant, get a table for six in the back, order up, and talk touring. Ren is looking forward to the upcoming Ken Carson Xperimenting tour in September, as a chance for Xavier to win over the rage-heads with a full throttle opening set. “We can show a different side of him,” he explains. “Just to say, ‘I can do it too.’ But I can do it my way, and with my music.” Xavier is more blunt about what awaits him with the Carson faithful: “I feel like there’s a good portion of them that hate my guts. For sure.” But I’m inclined to agree with the team’s publicist, Sam, who offers, “I don’t even know what a Xavier hater would look like!”

The next day, everyone has reconvened at a three-story house in Ridgewood, Queens. I’m told the building once hosted Sunday school for a nearby church, though some of its nooks feel more Shining than sanctified (one creepy bedroom is empty except for a lone rocking horse). Hypebeast’s Nayquan Shuler is putting Xav through his paces, shooting on the stoop, in a stairwell, a blue-tiled bathroom, even doing some ironing — good practice, perhaps, for Xavier, now that he’s on his own and doing adult things. When he lived at his grandma’s, he says, she would not let him do anything for himself: “She’d be like, ‘No you’re gonna do it wrong, you’re gonna fuck everything up. Let me do it.’”

Downstairs I catch up with Ren, who doesn’t let on too much about the year ahead, although the LA stint offers possibilities, not least because Xav is signed to talent agency behemoth CAA. Could there be film and TV in Xavier’s future? It’s not hard to imagine. “Everything happens at the right time,” Ren says. “It’s not about how fast it happens.”

One thing is for certain: the music won’t stop. Whether it’s single drops on Soundcloud, videos on alt pages or — eventually — another full project for Atlantic, Xaviersobased has held onto the freedom needed to keep flexing his experimental muscles. And what about chart-chasing at the behest of someone in a corner office? I ask him whether he would draw a line at, say, a feature with Sabrina Carpenter. “Bro, I’ll knock out a whole album with her,” he laughs. “I’m down for all types of things, but it just has to feel right and be done in a certain way.”

2026 has already proven to be the most blessed year yet for a young artist whose singular ear, willingness to push the rap envelope, and thoughtful, deliberate approach to career choices is getting its due. Time is on his side, and I don’t know anyone who’s not rooting for him.