K-Pop meets alt R&B musician xiv has established himself as the future generation of Asian artists, amassing over 2 million views since his debut in 2020. Now he's out with a new multidimensional tune called “BLASTOFF!”

xiv is a 21-year-old Asian-Canadian singer and songwriter located in Toronto who is not afraid to explore. Caught between two cultures, East and West, he strives to mix parts of both musical traditions to deliver a distinctive and distinct sound to audiences worldwide. xiv is dedicated to bridging the gap between infectious Pop melodies prominent in today's K-Pop albums and the silky smooth sonics of Western R&B, all while inspiring the next generation of Asian musicians.

biosphere, the other brainchild of “BLASTOFF!” is a 21-year-old Asian-Canadian composer and producer located in Toronto. He began with a lo-fi/hip hop sound but has lately expanded into R&B, soul, and symphonic influences. From an early age, he was classically trained in piano and a saxophone player, and he progressively grew inspired to compose his own music. His music is heavily inspired by his classical origins as well as his many years of playing in a jazz setting.

“BLASTOFF!” was inspired by childhood recollections of the legendary space opera Star Wars, and it serves as the lead single for Calamity, a ten-track album by biosphere and xiv. The track, which features emerging Toronto-based musician koven wei, tells the story of two lovers who are "galaxies between" each other, generating feelings of exhilaration and desire as they travel through space.

The song is an interplanetary voyage into another dimension and time, infused with svelte-smooth vocals over an enticing combination of polished R&B and K-pop. “BLASTOFF!” is the title track from xiv and producer biosphere's collaborative album. With a multitude of fresh sounds from a variety of genres, fans all around the world may expect the unexpected.

Coeval Magazine chats with multifaceted musician xiv about his journey through the music scene, and gets the in-depth scoop on “BLASTOFF!”.

How are you finding the music scene? Is it what you expected?

The music scene is really interesting. I can only speak on how it is in Toronto but the community here is very tight-knit. Everybody either knows each other or knows of each other, which I think is great because there’s so much talent and most people are open to collaborating in one way or another. Starting in music, especially as someone who didn’t have any resources or much support at first, I didn’t know what to expect. I had to figure things out about the scene and the industry by myself and it was daunting at first, but it’s such an important aspect of building a long-lasting career that I think every artist needs to go through something like that. I would say the only way to develop yourself in the music scene is to work hard and to meet new artists. There are no shortcuts in perfecting your craft and you need to put in the hours to get results.

Tell me about the journey you have gone through, can you highlight some of the most important moments so far?

Even though I’ve only been releasing music on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music since 2020, my musical journey goes way back to elementary school. I fell in love with music starting in 4th grade when I entered into a lot of singing competitions and, to my surprise, placed in a lot of them as well. Going into high school, I met biosphere, who produced all the beats on our album Calamity, and together we started making original music. At this point, music was just a hobby for me that I did on and off and I never really gave it any thought until I entered University. That was when I was introduced to another producer, hello, and with him, we started to develop together as artists. After releasing a few songs together and gaining more traction, I started to realize that music could be a career. Now that I was a lot more motivated and focused on making music, biosphere and I decided we were both ready to make a collaboration album. Around this time was also when we met koven wei, the feature on BLASTOFF!, and joined his collective, LAB0916, with the focus of developing the creative industry in Toronto. This was one of the best decisions we made because, for the first time ever, we felt like we had a team of like-minded individuals that were dedicated to delivering a new experience of both music and video. Most of the time, people only see the artists in front of the covers but behind all great artists is an even greater team, which is why both United Common Records and LAB0916 deserve a big shoutout for bringing Calamity and BLASTOFF! to life.

Your music is described as Intergalactic K-Pop Meets R&B, how and why does your music fall into these genres?

I would say the intergalactic part only applies to Calamity because of the “End of the World” concept we were going for with the album, but K-Pop and R&B apply to our current sound. Growing up in Toronto but also staying in touch with our Asian roots, I felt as if there was a big disparity between the styles of music between the East and West. I grew up listening to artists such as Drake and Bryson Tiller whose styles are very moody and emotional but I also loved the upbeat, catchiness of K-Pop, which made me want to find a way to bridge that gap. Throughout the album, we constantly searched for a balance between the two, leading us down a long road of experimentation.

Your most recent single “BLASTOFF!” is inspired by childhood memories, can you elaborate on this?

Yeah! BLASTOFF! was based on Star Wars and the whole song is about a relationship that plays on the “Damsel in Distress” theme, similar to the plot of the first movie with Princess Leia. I remember loving Star Wars as a kid and spending hours and hours watching it on my dad’s old VHS player. I think the nostalgic feeling of the original trilogy and our desire to create a world with our music really inspired both BLASTOFF! and its music video.

Why do you think it is important to create music based on real-life situations, such as your childhood memories?

I think creating music and even art in general needs to come from a genuine place. It doesn’t have to be your own experience but even by using the experience of others, listeners can truly hear the difference when you believe in your music. There’s a sense of authenticity and a rawness that people are drawn to when they want to listen to your record because, at the end of the day, art is a reflection of real life.

Why did you title the track “BLASTOFF!”?

It was the first thing that came to my mind after Koven and I completed the record at our session. Not a lot of reason behind it but it was probably influenced by hearing the iconic phrase “3..2..1 BLAST OFF!” a thousand times from TV shows and movies.

How do you want people to feel when listening to “BLASTOFF!”?

I want to make them feel like they’re able to enter into the world that we built. I think the most important things that we lose growing up are our dreams and our imagination but with BLASTOFF!, we wanted to bring them back to a time of nostalgia. A lot of times, people get bogged down by work, school, and responsibilities and they lose sight of how it feels to be a kid again where nothing else mattered and anything was possible.

Are you going to perform the single live? Have you got any shows lined up, can you tell us a bit about them?

I hope to do a few shows around Toronto and, if the opportunity arises, I would love to perform in Asia as well! Nothing set in stone at the moment, but we are definitely looking to do a lot more shows this year.

How would you like your music to develop even more over the next couple of years?

I'm already working on my next project and would describe the sound to be a lot darker than my current discography. I never want to be stuck in one place for too long, especially in music, because I believe it's always so important to try new things and re-innovate your sound. As a songwriter, I've also started to write for a lot of other artists which I feel to be very beneficial at honing my craft and it gives me a chance to write for a whole bunch of different genres as well! In the end, as long as I'm trying as hard as I can to push myself and my sound, I'll be satisfied with whatever comes out next.