{"id":2344995,"date":"2026-03-25T15:07:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T15:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2344995"},"modified":"2026-03-25T15:07:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T15:07:23","slug":"xaviersobased-on-new-music-rap-underground-meme-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/xaviersobased-on-new-music-rap-underground-meme-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Xaviersobased on New Music, Rap Underground, Meme Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tWhen I reach him over Zoom in the winter, Xaviersobased<\/a> \u2014 the 22-year-old rapper poised to carry the mantle for New York as a new rap underground breaks into the mainstream \u2014 is settling into his first apartment by himself. The move up to Yonkers comes a few days after the release of his well-received debut album, Xavier<\/em>, a 21-track journey into the Manhattan-born musician\u2019s wide-ranging sensibility. Production quirks like volume and pitch changes, multiple beat switches, brash sonic redirections punctuated by everything from samples of glass shattering to synth stabs puncturing through sheaths of filters, make for a kind of chaotic symphony that feels deliriously of the moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\tSince 2020, he\u2019s been dropping mixtapes for a growing cult audience built around a coterie of musicians who all came up around the same time. Names like Nettspend and Osamason, who in recent years have come to represent rap\u2019s youngest cohort<\/a>, firmly rooted in the digital age. For Xavier, who signed with Atlantic last year, this album represents a moment of growth. \u201cI just really wanted to drop a body of work that I put my most effort in,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s probably the most effort I put in something so far. That was really my goal: to just put effort in something and see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe album is less about polishing away the roughness of his earlier work than proving he can control it. Xavier\u2019s sound reflects a cluster of micro-languages that have effectively been memed into existence. There\u2019s a concept in online circles described as having \u201ctrained ears,\u201d that is, the ability to parse through the maximalist production style that runs through the scene.\u00a0 \u201cI feel like a big part of it is like, I don\u2019t know, people being neurodivergent and things like that,\u201d he says half-jokingly. \u201cIt\u2019s not even just that, though, because I feel like there\u2019s people that are neurotypical, too, that understand it. It is just like, if you know, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tHis sound is not totally unlike the freewheeling, stream-of-consciousness rap of Lil B the Basedgod, from whom Xavier gets his stage name. In the 2010s, having an affinity for Lil B was almost like membership in a secret society of listeners whose ears were attuned to the same oddball frequency. \u201cBut then there\u2019s those people that fucking hate it and end up getting trained,\u201d Xavier says. \u201cIt\u2019s also the type of shit that grows on you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBorn Xavier Lopez in 2003 and raised on the Upper West Side, Xaviersobased started making music in his early teens, uploading tracks online as he developed a loose style shaped both by New York\u2019s underground and the internet\u2019s genreless churn. His breakout came with songs like \u201cPatchmade\u201d and \u201cIn Da Booth,\u201d which circulated widely on SoundCloud and TikTok, positioning him as a central figure in the city\u2019s new wave of internet-native rap.<\/p>\n

\n\tXavier says he \u201cgrew up on the internet,\u201d which explains a track title like \u201cNegative Canthal Tilt\u201d: He says some fans were trolling him with the term, taken from the viral \u201clooksmaxxing\u201d community. (It is, apparently, a sign of one\u2019s face being unattractive.) He took the joke in stride, and decided to make it into a song. \u201cI fuck with the meme culture and shit,\u201d he says. \u201cI definitely had a little meme page account, some funny shit. But yeah, we got to fuck with the memes though, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tEven so, Xaviersobased is meticulous about the sonics in his music, no matter how chaotic they might seem. He recalls how one track, \u201cSeen a Lot of Things,\u201d became an obsession. \u201cI feel like the mix on that song still sounds not like how I wanted it to, but we got it as close as we could,\u201d he says. \u201cThat one took a while, bro. We probably did, like, 60, 70 mixes of that song. No joke.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd yet, he keeps returning to the same internal rule: Don\u2019t overthink. \u201cI don\u2019t really be too heavy on goals. I always say as long as I\u2019m doing what I\u2019m supposed to do, I\u2019m going to be what I\u2019m supposed to be, and I\u2019m happy with that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.rollingstone.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I reach him over Zoom in the winter, Xaviersobased \u2014 the 22-year-old rapper poised to carry the mantle for New York as a new rap underground breaks into the mainstream \u2014 is settling into his first apartment by himself. The move up to Yonkers comes a few days after the release of his well-received […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2344996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[449555,400591,449556,452370],"class_list":["post-2344995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-future-25","tag-future-of-music","tag-future-of-music-2026","tag-xaviersobased"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Xaviersobased-on-New-Music-Rap-Underground-Meme-Culture.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2344995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2344995"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2344995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2344997,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2344995\/revisions\/2344997"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2344996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2344995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2344995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2344995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}