LXOR (aka Tonai) is an emcee who I've been a fan of for a very long time. His music evokes images of haunted nineteenth-century gothic castles, medieval grimoires, or shamanic exorcisms where spirits wait to be freed with his beats. Over the course of his career, from his first release, Eschaton, to his most recent album, Shadows 2: The End We Cannot Unknow, LXOR has crafted a uniquely futuristic funk that grapples with the more mysterious aspects of life.
I've been lucky enough to know LXOR for many years, as we were both part of a hip-hop crew called Lowest Common Denominator (LCD), based in Honolulu, Hawaii, a bunch of years back. At the time, Hawaii hip-hop was majorly influenced by the intensely dense music emerging from Los Angeles' Project Blowed/Good Life Café era. The ‘chop’ was one of the most amazing emcee rhyme style innovations that the LA artists were stunning listeners with, and some Hawaiian emcees, like Staplemouth, his group the Proletariots, and Omega Cix, were doing remarkable things with the innovation. LXOR arrived on the Hawaii hip-hop scene with his own style of chop and matched the flow with insanely interesting production.
Since the days of LCD, LXOR has gone on to record eight albums. Check them all out on his Bandcamp page.
Shadows 2, his most recent release, is his best album to date. In most of LXOR's early work, though his lyrics are profound, the stories LXOR tells are about deep history and occult influences upon humanity. He accomplishes a lot within this framework, and I highly recommend Arcane Scripting as it is also a fantastic exploration of harmonic musical exorcisms. Shadows 2, however, marks a new plateau for his music as he opens up his personal life to the listener, presenting songs like "Suicidology," "Therapy," and "The Legend of Fantom God." LXOR confronts depression, the death of his good friend and fellow emcee Fantom God, the death of his stepfather, and the intergenerational pain that comes with being a Black man in America in this trilogy of artistic bloodletting. Another powerful song, both sonically and lyrically, is "Body Costume," and I've had "Animal Astral Plan" on repeat play for many days now.
Besides making music, LXOR is an organic farmer and an activist, and he maintains the New Cultivation Podcast with his partner, Jaime Powell. Over the years, his activism has infused his music with soulful depth, one reason why Shadows 2 is such a triumph. It is the artistic synthesis of all LXOR's previous work. It's not easy making discordantly dense noises sound smooth, but LXOR's creations are true musical contributions to hip-hop and humanity.
Gabriel Kennedy: What made you want to be a hip-hop artist?
LXOR: Listening to hip-hop music for as long as I can remember. I always felt like rapping and making beats were the main things in this world that were meant for me to do, and that this art form could accept all parts of myself and express them authentically.
Gabriel: You communicate very dense information in your songs. What message do you want listeners to walk away with from your music?
LXOR: My main thing is to condense music with much meaning. Very meaningful lyricism that goes to a much-needed depth. I want the listener to feel like they have never heard anything like this before.
Gabriel: Who are some of your musical influences?
LXOR: Freestyle Fellowship, Living Legends, GonjaSufi, Kate Bush, New Cocoon, and plant medicine music is scratching the surface of some of my long-time musical influences.
Gabriel: Are there any influences outside of other musicians that have informed how you craft your songs?
LXOR: Everything that is going on in the world, personally and collectively. The tones are being set for the current times we are living in. I tune in to these vibrations and capture aspects of them in songs.
Gabriel: In your life's journey as an artist, you went from moving around different states to settling in Oregon and embarking on organic farming. How did you get into farming?
LXOR: It really came from working on cannabis grow spots and trim scenes for many years, where I learned how plants and soil work. I got more interested in low-scale backyard food cultivation in the past eight years as a means of resistance against inaccessibility to healthy organic food.
Gabriel: You and your partner, Jaime, run the New Cultivation Podcast. What's the vision for that?
LXOR: The vision for our podcast is to build a community and create a culture built around the awareness of racialized trauma, healing work, collapse preparedness, and social justice actions.
Gabriel: What's next on the musical horizon?
LXOR: I'm working on a new Confia album with Trust One. Mazaloth 13 with Wormhole project upcoming. Many things are cooking in the basement right now. Stay tuned.
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