I’m 32 years old, and I’m at the xaviersobased show. For many people, and for me most days, that might sound relatively young. But if you’re a fan of xaviersobased and his dissonant, very online brand of rap — and, I imagine, if you’re one of the kids in the mosh pit that I’m watching expand and contract below me from the balcony at Webster Hall — it probably sounds insanely old.
It’s the end of 2025, and the New York rapper is closing out his Riverside Tour with a sold-out concert in his hometown. Outside the venue, the 22-year-old’s boyish face stares back blankly from a decal on the side of a large tour bus parked on the curb; the design depicts Xavier and fellow rappers in his 1c collective, Backend and Ksuuvi, wearing black suits, carrying various instruments, and seemingly imitating the back cover of an Aventura album.
Inside, the packed room is full of baggy jeans and backpacks, face piercings and dyed hair. The stage around Xavier is set up to look like a skate park – ramps, traffic cones, a New York City park bench – and much of the crowd looks like they just wandered out of one. A kid clumsily surfs over the top of the crowd, recording the show from a laptop he’s holding over his head, and every few minutes, a group of mostly teenage boys in the middle of the crowd retreats to clear out a circle of empty floor as each song comes to an end, before charging forward as a new beat drops, bodies bouncing and arms flailing.