Xzai
Early Life
Xavier Monroe Professionally known as "XZAI" is an American rapper from Washington, D.C. signed to Bentley records under their artist development program. Xzai was born to an American father and a Sierra Leonean mother. Xzai is fluent in French and English as he has been studying french since he was 6 years old. Before he made music XZAI had dreams of being an athlete. He played many sports such as Football, Lacrosse, Rugby, Baseball, and Soccer, but the primary sport that he enjoyed was playing basketball. He had dreams of playing professional basketball. He made the varsity basketball team. Unfortunately, a death in the family caused Xzai's life to be upended and he would falter in his duties as a student-athlete. His coach would kick him off the team for missing practice claiming he “didn't want it bad enough”. XZAI didn’t know what to do. All he aspired to be was an athlete. Around that same time, he became friends with fellow musician LVNDR whom he went to the same school with. XZAI always showed he had the ability to rap when freestyling with friends, but he never actually took it seriously. LVNDR released a snippet of an unreleased song, and XZAI liked it so much he insisted that he become a feature on the track. LVNDR quickly agreed, and helped XZAI record his feature on the since-deleted song “LUV pt. 2”. After the song was released it quickly got two thousand plays on Soundcloud. XZAI quickly fell in love with the process of making music, so he continued to write music on his phone. During the summer after a day at the pool with his father and one of his closest friends, his father is called and is told by XZAI’s older sister, who is also a rapper named LA$HAE, that she is shooting a music video at a recording studio in Washington D.C. XZAI begged his father to take him to the shoot. After the video shoot, XZAI would ask his sister if she thought the engineer would let him book a studio session that day. He talks to the engineer and ends up booking an hour-long session. This session led him to record his first single “Mud”. Everyone in the room was impressed with his abilities and raw talent for being so young.
Education
Xzai Graduated from DC International School in 2021. Xzai is also classically trained in multiple musical instruments including but not limited to: the drums, the djembe, the piano, and his self-professed favorite the ukelele.
