California artist Xaver returns with the glistening new single ‘Portraits’. He grew up moving around quite a bit and discovered the connection that is shared amongst different cultures and people is art. With his mom being a creative writing teacher, he and his siblings were subjected to the endless creativity of poetry. Writing became his vice through which he felt he could express his everyday thoughts, questions and answers to what he saw around him.

Introduce yourself (yourselves) and your hidden talent!

I go by Xaver, I am 23 and I’m from California. I’ve been making music for a few years now, and started putting it out just over a year ago. My hidden talent is acting, I actually got my degree in Theatre and Performing Arts.

What made you decide that music is the right path for you?

I grew up in a family obsessed with being creative. My mom is a creative writing professor, my dad is somebody who has a great ear for music, my sister was somebody who spent her whole childhood writing stories and ended up also studying creative writing and became an English teacher and my brother got studied poetry and journalism and loves anything to do with filming. So I was always around this mentality that being creative is just a part of life. I was always into poetry, acting and music. I Played a little bit of guitar, tried my hand on the saxophone and ended up playing bass for a few years. Singing was something I loved doing but for some reason always felt embarrassed about sharing. But as I got older there was something so transformative about making music, it felt like something I had to do. It helped me express the things I was struggling with and allowed me to communicate what I didn’t really know how to do otherwise.

Who are your main musical influences and why?

I feel like I draw from a variety of artists. The first artist I ever really listened to was Cat Stevens, he was the first CD I ever owned and I made my parents play it in the car maybe a little too much. Bob Marley is also somebody that I know played a roll in my music, just cus as a kid every Sunday my dad would be blasting it from the living room. Then as I got older I really grew into a lot of rap. Mac Miller was somebody who probably had the biggest influence on me, because not only was he somebody who tackled so many different types of music, but I remember listening to his songs and being so impressed with his ability to be vulnerable, talking about things I thought people should never talk about. And now my whole purpose in music is to make something like that, where people who are struggling can maybe hear something that helps them feel understood. Frank Ocean was also somebody who really shaped the way that I see music, because he abandoned the whole traditional music style, and was somebody who helped me see that as long as it sounds good and makes people feel something, who cares bout the structure. The list could go on forever with people like; Kanye, Amy Winehouse, Daniel Caesar, Tyler the Creator, Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole etc. 

If you could collaborate with anyone dead or alive, who would it be?

For me it would have to be Mac Miller, he is somebody that I feel like has a special connection to music, and the ability to make something that not only tells a story but really allows people to connect and yet at the same time vibe out. 

Tell MoggBlog viewers about your latest release! What’s the inspiration behind that?

My new single ‘Portraits’ is a song that uses the analogy of the critiquing of paintings to dive into what I sometimes feel socially. Often people are looking at paintings and tend to focus on what they believe the artist meant without ever having met them or truly knowing, instead of focusing on what I means to them. I think that is a circumstance a lot of people can identify with, where they feel misunderstood and judged.