xtrGO interview

xtrGO out of Lawrence, Massachusetts is an up-and-coming artist with a unique flow and ability to create empathetic songs. xtrGO’s wide and diverse range of musical influences can be seen on his last album “She Loves Me” where he brings together his talents to create a unique take on the classic genre of Love albums. We recently interviewed xtrGO to better understand what brought him to where he is today.

 

Who are your major influences?

My major influences are Tupac of course, Drake, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z,  Kendrick, and lately I’ve been really inspired by Future.

 

When did you start making music and what inspired you to make music?

I started making music young, probably was 10 when I made my first beat. I remember My Dad gave me his old MPC 1000 for my birthday that year this was probaly the best gift I’ve ever got in my life. I was makin beats for a little then I started writing lyrics around highschool and this was when I really started to consider myself a music maker because I focus on lyrics when I listen to music personally, you can probably tell by my list of inspirations this is just what I like the most when it comes to music.

 

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in the 978 Essex county Massachusettes. Born in Lawrence and moved around a bit from there to Haverhill to North Andover where I went to highschool which was weird because the neighborhood I grew up in called Woodridge , Shout out Woodridge! Woodridge is a low income housing complex in a town like North Andover which most of the people living here have money so it was different being one of the only broke kids in town let alone being hispanic in this white ass town. gave me and my friends there a different perspective for sure.

 

How has your music evolved since you first started?

I released my first mixtape in 2014 Called ET Eastside takeover and this was basically trap beats without the mumble rapping in a time when mumble rap was starting to hold a place in hip-hop so i never really got recognition for my sound back then, until two years after I dropped my second mixtape blueFLAVOR which was all different sounding beats and me just doing whaetever I wanted and that was cool because I was having a lot of fun working on that project it wasn’t as heavy or serious as the ET joint. and lately I just released a Single called It Bumps on all platforms and it BUMPS I mean this is my first song which I produced, engineered, wrote, and recorded myself I’m pretty excieted about it. Even last year I dropped an EP called “She Loves Me” on November 11th and this defintely was different than my mixtape stuff, its like how rappers sometimes fall into those different sounds naturally like ohh I like his radio or commercial stuff better or I prefer the mixtape xtrGO either way I want to keep experiementing with my music but keep true to some of my original flows.

 

Could you explain your music creating process?

I love to collab, I took a break from making beats so I like to see what other producers can come up with and like I mentioned earlier Its more about lyrics for me so I get a beat from a beat maker or on youtube and I will write to it and see what I can come up with usually get better songs when I’m working with producers I know on a personal level rather than just grabbing a beat off youtube, even though I can still kill any of those beats and make hits hahaha.

 

Any plans for new music or upcoming projects we should know about?

Since It Bumps was like in introduction to a series of singles I plan to release througout the summer just gotta be patient and see I have a lot of producers who’ve I’ve met since I was living in Florida for the last couple months and it defintely inspired a new sound for xtrGO stay tuned we got a lot fo new music on the way!