Xadi
Xadi, from Hounslow in West London, is a singer, song writer, rapper, producer or as he put it better “an artist on the whole, all over the shop.”
The sun is out and I’m sat in Hyde Park, ready to meet one of my favourite artists and people alike. I’m remembering the first concert of his for 18 months and grinning at the memories of a packed-out basement room with a fat sound system and this guy topless and dripping in sweat flying around the stage and jumping into the fray with the whole crowd screaming his lyrics back at him. It was electric and the power and supreme confidence emanating from him that night is still palpable in the easy stroll and grin that precede him up the hill. Xadi, from Hounslow in West London, is a singer, song writer, rapper, producer or as he put it better “an artist on the whole, all over the shop.” When I asked him about his name, the answer I got reflected a core element of who he is and what he represents. Far from the meaning of a rich sugar daddy in the states as some of his American fans may think, his middle name Hadim, the name of an important Senegalese prophet, is the inspiration for the pseudonym.
On the topic he said: “I just wanted to kind of honour that side of me”. This idea of integrity is of central importance to him as an artist and you see it in multiple spheres: his drive, his constant inclusion of his day 1s in his projects, his independence both from a label and from relying on anyone in any dimension of his art, and his readiness to play and explore different sounds so long as they sit right with him.
Xadi refuses to honour right angles, despite his proficiency for physics recognised by his Cambridge degree. For him, the musician and the scientist sit not at odds but as two sides of the same coin. He sees the nexus of both elements in his personality as “a curiosity and an interest in just playing around and seeing what happens”. Indeed his new project, ‘Floating in the lilac’, is about staring at the stars, a behaviour that underpinned his interest in science: “that’s why I did physics in the first place because I wanted to do shit about planets and stars so I guess its that, there’s something comforting about just a distant world how small we are and I think that’s the same with music it makes you feel something, like its not about making some physical thing it’s just making something to make you feel some kind of way.”
The new project (which I’ve had the pleasure of listening to and holy ****) takes the listener through his multiple talentslike a cruise in a Bentley. You see Xadi the producer especially clearly in his first and last tracks which are “very spacey soundscapes and that is just something that I don’t know if its nature or nurture but my ear is addicted to it”. Beats are important to Xadi, whose largest influence and musical crush is Kanye West. “I would say the number one influence would be Kanye West. As a kid listening to music I was always tapped into the beats before anything else”. He adds “just the confidence and the outlandishness [of Kanye] as well I just fucking love it.”
In his second track you see Xadi the bar4bar killa. He’d be the first to admit that “creatively I’ve just moved a little bit” away from his first works where this comes to the fore more often perhaps but as he puts it “I just fucking love bars, like I can’t make a project where I’m gonna play it to my guys and I’m gonna play it here for you and you’re not gonna get gassed off some bars”. I am unashamed to say I did get gassed.
That creative movement away from the first music he was putting out does not represent a retreat from his musical origins. His beats at times include guitar elements which are “in my dna, it’s literally like … that’s my instrument so if I’m gonna make a beat I’ll start there and most of the time they just sound fucking wavy”. The penchant for the guitar is partly routed in his time spent with rock music. A backing singer in a rock band in his early years, Youth and Youngmanhood by Kings of Leon is one of his favourite albums and these influences precipitate his heavy “melody focus”.
“That’s why I did physics in the first place because I wanted to do shit about planets and stars so I guess its that, there’s something comforting about just a distant world how small we are and I think that’s the same with music it makes you feel something, like its not about making some physical thing it’s just making something to make you feel some kind of way.”
Track three is the freshly released “Instincts” a feel-good summer anthem. “The little Spanishy joint” is underpinned by a guitar and perfectly exemplifies the melody focus referred to above. This creative shift also partly refers to his move towards what he describes as an alternative r&b energy, a scene well-established in the states but still burgeoning in the UK. The fourth and final undiscussed track on the project is of this nature and has a feature from Nina Cobham, a singer from Manchester with whom Xadi has already made several songs including his highest streaming hit currently “Mañana”. The two have a great creative understanding and in fact hadn’t even met when they made the aforementioned song together.
The forays into different sounds are unlikely to stop here. When asked if there is room for expansion in his style in the future, he gives the following response: “Always, 100% like I will definitely be branching out into something crazy cos that’s what keeps you excited like you’ll hear something you start making it and you’re like what the fuck I didn’t think I could make something like that.”
To that end in the next few months alongside the new project, a song with Fo, who has a culty following in the UK underground rap scene, and another with a DJ best known for his EDM music will be gracing our ears. The latter song is characteristically difficult to label and it is interesting his playfulness with music is infectious in this way. This diversity is not frivolity however, with Xadi adding “that said you’ll never catch me making a style of music I don’t like”.
As the astute reader will have gleaned from this article so far, Xadi is always up to something. Releasing music of his own and collabing in new and exciting directions on the side. The weekends are never work free and this is by design. His grind is for real and comes back to that idea of integrity. He speaks on it on the outro for his new project and I wont ruin it here but suffice it to say his drive comes from inside him and from a young age. It underpins his academic achievement: “That’s how I went from being like a naughty kid to being a freak studier it was just someone saying I couldn’t do something and me just becoming totally obsessed with it” as well as his musical journey:
“I did that with music like everything I wanna achieve I feel like I have to start from the bottom like and I have some desire to like do it without any help or I can’t wait for someone to come and help so that’s why everything I do I mix/master/produce because I didn’t know anyone else who would do that and I was like aite imma learn how to do it.”.
There is a desire there to achieve in a way which he notes has a melancholic edge: “I think it’s just who I am I have to be chasing something and I’m not gonna be happy otherwise – that’s why when I’ve done conventional jobs for a little bit I’m like what am I chasing which is sad and happy in the sense that like I’ll never be satisfied.” Luckily for him and his fans too, he is not only driven but passionate so we can expect high-level product for a long time to come. When I asked him for some closing words to the fans he said simply “once this run starts its not stopping so I just can’t wait. I just can’t wait.” I for one believe him and mirror his sentiment entirely.
