Hi 🙂 I’m X. ARI.
I’m a queer, kooky, neurodivergent artist from Canada living in LA. Music has always been there for me. It’s helped me heal, express myself, understand myself, and ultimately turn Pain Into Power.
I started singing at age seven, performed in my first play at eight, and by eleven I was performing in a Canadian girl group called Untamed with my sister. Music has been the one constant throughout my life, and over the years I evolved into a solo artist, developing my songwriting skills and finding my authentic voice along the way. My journey has been full of incredible highs and some very dark lows. Whenever life became too challenging, writing my own lyrics and melodies carried me through the moments when I didn’t believe I could carry myself anymore.
Since 2016, I’ve released 10 EPs as X. ARI, and I’m currently finishing my 11th to share with you soon. Each EP unveils a different chapter of my life and my journey toward self-love, courage, healing and empowerment. Creating visceral art from my experiences has become one of my healthiest forms of catharsis.
When I realized I was pansexual, I wrote an entire EP about my queer awakening. Those songs went on to find homes in major television shows, and it was pretty wild watching something so intimate and personal to me travel into the lives of people I would never meet. Since then, stories from my life have continued to travel through my music, appearing across Netflix, Showtime, MTV, CBS, NBC, ABC, Bravo, TLC, Discovery, HGTV, Peacock and Paramount+, as well as in projects for e.l.f. Cosmetics and Marks & Spencer.
My voice has also found its way into the award-winning video game Arknights, where I’ve written and performed multiple songs. “Renegade,” the theme for the character W, was nominated for a Hollywood Music in Media Award, and another Arknights project I sang on later won one.
I’ve spent years writing and collaborating internationally, building an incredible community of artists, writers and producers across Europe. Apparently one artist project wasn’t enough for my brain, lol, so I also create through CHA$E 13, my electronic/DJ project; FEMFREQ, my queer-female electronic duo; and benari, my 432 Hz healing music project with fellow Canadian artist Ben Spivak. Each one gives a completely different part of me somewhere to come out and play.
Musically, I’ve never been very good at staying in one box. I’ve bent genres throughout my career, teeter-tottering between emotional electro-pop, alternative pop, pop-rock, uplifting confidence anthems and even some unexpected screamo moments. I love contrast. I can be vulnerable and powerful, dark and silly, emotional and completely unhinged. All of those things are genuinely me.
Underneath all the music and weird adventures, my purpose is actually really simple: I want people to feel less alone. During some of the hardest periods of my life, I desperately wanted to see someone on the other side saying, “I’ve been through this too. Keep going.” That’s why I speak so openly about my experiences and why mental health advocacy became inseparable from X. ARI.
Eventually, I founded WisdoMania Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit built around connection, creativity, self-care and building resilience through wellness, arts and community. To me, Pain Into Power means taking whatever life hands me and asking: What can I create from this? How can I grow from this? And how can what I’ve learned help somebody else?
I’m still growing. Still healing. Still writing. Still learning. Still getting weird. Probably a little weirder every year, lol. I believe in dreaming BIG, and I love something my dad once told me: “A big shot is a little shooter that never stops shooting.”
After more than 25 years of making music, I somehow feel like I’m just getting started. If sharing my story or my music helps even one person feel understood, empowered, hopeful, or a little less alone, then my mission is complete.
Welcome to my weird little world. 🙂