When you hear Xaviersobased, you’ll wish to argue about Xaviersobased. Indifference shouldn’t be an possibility as a result of his music turns informal rap convos into First Take. Probably it’s since you suppose his glazed vocals—typically pitch-shifted, typically layered so thick that they’re mystically fused collectively—completely suck. In some instances it might flip you into the type of hip-hop conservative you used to make enjoyable of.

Alternatively, possibly, you’ll see the sunshine, and go on and on, like I do, about the way it’s a borderline religious expertise, one that may have you ever standing round with crowds of youngsters and skaters after midnight, under underpasses, at warehouse reveals with unpronounceable names on the invoice, or at extra customary venues (the place possibly you’ll get caught in a riot, or find yourself posted up subsequent to a furry), simply to hearken to this babyface Higher West Aspect 20 12 months outdated’s blur of blown-out, completely zooted dance rap.

Two years in the past, I used to be initiated into Xavier’s prolific and overwhelming churn of mixtapes and SoundCloud loosies with the self-produced “Crisp Dubs,” a lagging, rebooting single that spices up a pattern from the soundtrack of an on-line porno gaming sequence. It’s so boundless that it had me satisfied that I had simply stumbled into the best shit and immediately bonded with anybody who felt the identical, which is what underground rap is all about in a manner. Hardly the rest in his catalog is sort of like “Crisp Dubs” nevertheless it set the precedent for a method that pulls from so many alternative corners of fashionable and underground rap and on-line and regional cultures that just about nothing feels off limits. He can rap “Slap the shit out of a outdated nigga if he classist,” or a zillion iterations of “Two unhealthy hoes within the lure tryna’ fuck me.” He can reimagine misplaced subgenres of New York or make a beat that looks like he hacked into Soulja Boy’s outdated GarageBand account. All for the aim of constructing celebration rap that’s infused with the DNA of celebration rap that got here earlier than it.

Xavier’s first (and certainly not final) mixtape of the 12 months, Maintain It Goin Xav, is a bottle-popping celebration. Sprinkled with clips from his interview with the tape’s host DJ Rennessy—that are largely annoying as a result of Rennessy lacks the identifiable charisma of memorable mixtape hosts—it’s primarily a look-at-how-far-I’ve-come venture. It’s nowhere close to as humorless as that sounds, although, as a result of the music is vibrant, improvisatory, and enjoyable as hell. In a manner, it’s of a lineage with a lot of the twenty first century’s nice hangout rap made by these under authorized ingesting age, from the skater’s anthems to the bedroom-made rapalongs to the Magic Metropolis soundtracks.