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LGBTQ Artist and Mental Health Advocate X.ARI

LGBTQ Artist and Mental Health Advocate X.ARI

LGBTQ singer-songwriter and mental health advocate X.ARI is all about turning pain into power through art and self-care.

On a mission to use creativity to empower and raise awareness by using her platform, X.ARI hopes to help others find their conduit for healing. For the entire month of May, she is hosting “Mental Health Month with X.ARI,” a free online festival with workshops and talks by healers, teachers, advocates, artists, and organizations such as National Alliance on Mental Illness. X.ARI aims to spark open conversation, connect like-minded people, and provide healing support throughout the month that participants can utilize in the future.

X.ARI is currently working on her fifth EP, Anja, which is in dedication to her first-ever girlfriend, Anja. The EP is slated to release June 25 in honor of Pride month, and she just recently released the record’s second single, “Good for Me.”

OFM had the opportunity to chat with X.ARI and talk more about the new track and her passion for mental health advocacy.

Hello! Thank you for taking some time to chat with me. Can you begin by telling us how you came up with the name, X.ARI?
I came up with the name Ari in 2015 when I started writing my first EP, Tunnel Vision. I didn’t quite know anything about songwriting. I had been writing for years, but I was not that great. Then, this amazing producer and songwriter named Fernandez showed me a lot about songwriting, and I learned a lot in that time. The sound really developed into something different than my Daniella Watters Project, which I have been working on. I said, maybe we should call this a new name. I put it under Ari, which means “lion” in Hebrew, I am Jewish, and in Nordic, it means “eagle.” I also liked that the name is gender neutral, and I always liked something that was distinct and easy, like two syllables.

Later, somebody was like, I was trying to show your music at BMG and couldn’t find Ari, there are so many Ari’s out there. Like, holy shit, I better make myself more searchable. I do not want to miss an opportunity to get my music played. Then I thought, maybe I can change it up a little bit. I first thought, maybe put an initial after Ari, and then somebody was like, why don’t you put an initial before? Then I thought, X, and the X chromosome is something that everyone has that unites us all. It is something we all have in common.

What can you tell us about your latest track, “Good for Me?”
“Good for Me” is dedicated to my girlfriend, Anja. She is my first-ever girlfriend. We met in November 2020, and it was such a spiritual journey. Basically, I was doing Reiki on myself for the first time, and I got this message that before I welcome true love, I need to go through a certain experience. I wondered what that experience could be, and I did not get any further messages. One thing led to another, and I got this message that I needed to start dating women. That’s what that message from the universe was all about. Okay, I am going to put myself out there and see what happens.

I went on two dates and was not really into them, and I was like, I don’t know, I am just following my spirit guides. They told me I should date women. I am listening, but I don’t know what I am doing. Then, the third woman I met was Anja, and I was just immediately drawn to her. We have been dating ever since, we have gotten quite serious, and she is amazing. I could see her as a life partner. So, I started writing this whole EP in November, and “Good for Me” is about her. It is a song about acknowledging something unexpected that will be good for you. It is saying, she is the girl that could be good for you and she was basically what I was looking for in a man, but I could not find it. I found it in a woman, and it turns out, that is what was good for me.

You released your female empowerment anthem, “She Knows It,” a couple weeks ago. How has it been received?
I think it has been received very well. By all means, it is not like some top 40s thing, but seeing what marketing we were able to put into it and seeing all the positive comments on YouTube, lots of people saying they are adding it to their playlist, and just a lot of quick feedback from friends, publications, and fans, it seems like people are really connecting with this alt-pop energy that I am dying to delve more into on this record. I really loved making the “She Knows It” music video. I made it in an episode of mania, I struggle with bipolar and a couple other mental illnesses, and I was able to do my motto, “channeling pain into power,” by putting my energy into something creative.

I had all this energy for my music video because of that, and thankfully, I was able to focus, and I try not to worry too much on how things are received. I try to focus attention on how things are created. I derive satisfaction and call it success, quote unquote, when the idea in my head comes to reality in an audio form, and then the visual I see in my head comes to reality on a video. I try to focus on that and that part of the success that I have the capacity to control, quote unquote. It took me years to get to that point where I have the alignment of what I see actually coming into fruition. I really appreciate that about my progress. To have a vision that can come to me, and then I know one day when it is right it can click in a higher sense, but I try not to consume myself with commercial success and depend my happiness on the way it is received.

What do you hope listeners take away from your music?
I really hope that people just trust the process and listen to that inner voice. Whether they want to call it their own inner voice, their spirit guides, or the universe guiding them, but just trust the process of life. Know that the universe will guide you and believe in endless possibilities for ourselves. Like, if I can go from a life of dating me and now being in love with a woman who might very well be my life partner, which is totally life changing, that only happened to me because I was willing to trust the universe. I was willing to let my identity be fluid and not frigid or stuck. Just be more flowing with our identity and not be so fixed on who we think we are or what we expect from ourselves because that can truly shift in a beautiful way if we allow ourselves to expand and grow.

Have you always had a passion for singing and songwriting?
Yes! I started singing at a very young age and started singing lessons when I was seven years old. I always loved to sing. I always loved how listening to my own voice made me feel soothed; the feeling of singing was very calming for me. I grew up in a very chaotic environment, and I think for me, singing was grounding and healing. Then I went on to be in plays and musical theatre, I recorded my first song, an Elvis Presley song, when I was 10 years old, I was in my first girl band when I was 11, and then we recorded our first album and started touring when I was 15. I saw some nasty things in the music industry, so I quit for several years and formed a punk rock band and did my own personal project that formed into a pop-Motown thing. Eventually, I found my way into my art project. So, I have been doing music my whole life, there were just some gaps.

We can expect to see you at several Pride events in L.A. How exciting is this for you?
I am so excited! I have my first in-person show on June 22 at El Cid, it is going to be a Pride Month party, and we have trans rapper Ryan Cassata, he is going to be performing too, and we will be finding out the third act soon. It is in the process of being constructed, but I am so excited for it. I will be celebrating my Anja EP.

I have always loved Pride, and I literally have a psychic friend who told me that I was gay for many years. I was like, I am not. I love gay people and I feel at home here, but I am not gay. Then when I finally meet a woman, she’s like, ‘I’m psychic! You couldn’t have listened to me?’ I just needed to figure it out for myself. So many people are telling me, finally, you are in your skin. I was not hiding it, it’s not like I needed to come out, I just did not realize it.

So, I am excited for my first Pride Month where I am genuinely part of the LGBTQ community, even though I always felt aligned and always felt at home with everybody on the spectrum. I always felt more comfortable with the LGBTQ community than any other community.

As a major mental health advocate, you are hosting a series of mental health events throughout the month of May. Can you tell us more about that?
I work up on April 1 with this idea of like, I must do something for mental health month. It is one month away. I started thinking small, maybe I will do a couple IG lives or whatever, then I realized that I have so many amazing people in my network. So many mental health workers, so many healers, so many advocates, so many teachers, and so many organizations. I could put together a whole month of material featuring different people on different days giving everyone a platform to speak their truth and shine a light on mental health, thereby helping other people and making a community.

People can feel supported and seen and know they are not alone. Hopefully they will walk away with some new coping skills on their toolbelt for self-care and wellness. I put together this calendar, it was live on my site by April 15 or 16, and I started inviting people out and it started May 2. It was very quickly put together, and I am really proud of myself for the amount of energy and the capacity that I put into making a month-long calendar happen so quickly. I am grateful for all the people who made it happen.

I had a manic episode, OCD flare up, and anxiety flare up from January to March 15, so I was literally only well for like 15 days before I started planning this. I am very grateful for my health and capacity to be able to host adequately and hold a space for other people in this environment. Not every day, but many days throughout the month, you hop on Zoom, have a talk, I feature a partner, and the two of us go through exercises to help engage people in something new they may not have done before, or something they have tried and want to know more about. There is so much more to come for the whole month, and I am definitely trying to reach as many people as possible, but again, not focusing on attendance, focusing more on high quality content and creating a space to support others in their healing process.

What more do you hope to do with your platform?
I hope to, at some point, maybe next year, start off the Coachella of wellness. Make an in-person festival that will hopefully happen in multiple cities throughout the month of May where the arts meet self-care. We can do creative group exercises where people can learn how to channel their pain into power, making their weaknesses their strengths, learn to transmute your energy into a healthy conduit, and there could be everything from poetry classes to songwriting classes to one-on-ones where people can debrief, have unwind rooms, and learn more about other people in their fields.

It is a space for networking, a space for healing, a space for live music to be played all day by artists who are in the mental health field, a space for LGBTQ people, a space for people who have short films about mental health they want to show – a whole coalition of the arts meeting self-care and creativity all in one hub meant for everybody who wants to learn a little bit about self-care and creativity, or people who are struggling with mental illness who need some extra support in coping skills.

It is not meant just for mentally ill people; it is meant for all people because everyone needs to take care of their health. That would be my goal for something in the future. I would love to see in my lifetime a reduction of suicide rates as people like myself stand in their power, share their story, and inspire other people. I would also love to play big stadium tours and inspire other people and give other people a healthy place for entertainment. Where they feel part of the amazing energy and community, and I would love to be a performer that people want to come see, support, grow with, and learn with. I am always learning. I want to make an impact with my music and make an impact on the mental health field.

Before we wrap up, are there any other upcoming projects or anything else you would like to mention or plug?
I am working on my sixth EP, which is called Artica, the Destroyer of Worlds, where I embody a past lifetime from 100,000 years ago, where I was a pink-skinned alien named Artica, who lived on an ice planet who accidentally blew up her own planet when her unbridled superpowers got out of control! So, an accidental supervillain record, which is going to be very animated, intergalactic alt-pop. I am creating a music video, and because I am a figure skater, it is going to be a figure skating music video on an ice planet. It is going to be very creative and the interaction of skating, aliens, music, storytelling, and mental health.

To stay up-to-date, follow X.ARI on Facebook and Instagram, or visit her official website. Check out “Good for Me,” “She Knows It,” and all other music on Spotify, Soundcloud, and all other digital streaming platforms.

Photos Courtesy of Chris Chapman

 

 

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