Photos by Atoosa Moinzadeh

After years of knowing him through my headphones as someone in the New York rap underground who killed guest verses, I first encountered Theravada IRL this summer, real name Xenophon (he pronounces it Zen-a-fin) at one of my Generator events with Laron. He was facing joints outside, and then inside, I remember he was like solemnly nodding his head and absorbing Laron’s set.

I also remember they were both outside at another point, smoking 100 joints and having a semi confidential conversation on the sidewalk on President Street about upcoming Earl Sweatshirt music. Xen under his breath mentioned to me he was involved, and that a serious project was on its way. I remember thinking damn I gotta tap in with the solo music and production and DJing…it was the Earl cosign that made me think this was a heavy artist I had been sleeping on.

And I was, but I’ve been fixing that. Recently we all found out he produced about half of Earl’s Live Laugh Love (shout out Chastity Belt), which is Earl as a relatively young dad alternately puffing his chest and letting lullabies creep into his technical, clever raps, with lyrics melting into Theravada’s samples. Theravada’s “Tourmaline” is the standout, the single, with a slo mo video by Devlin Claro Resetar, the best to do it since Kahlil Joseph. (Shout out Laron too, who isn’t on the album but produced the SoundCloud-only warning shot which preceded it.)

And then Theravada put out his own album, The Years We Have, which is on the same level and in the same ballpark, and which I see as a companion the same way Baby and Swag are companions, I guess making Earl Justin Bieber and Theravada Dijon?

That’s a bad metaphor maybe, but The Years We Have is the same vibe but chiller than LLL, self produced, starring a Queens Greek American playing basketball “in Maharishi sweats,” shooting at a rim that “looks mad small” and making shots. There is nothing haphazard about TYWH: it’s made of methodical stimulating loops and surgical cuts that display a real ear for how to “let the sample speak to me,” as Cash Cobain once told me, with low voiced raps that convey wit, folk wisdom, reflections on disability, flexing, double meanings, earnest directness…and lots more that I am still interpreting. At one point I thought Theravada was talking about SI meaning suicidal ideation, but he was rapping about Stone Island. Shows where my head’s at maybe.

Off meeting me at Generator, he invited me to the TYWH listening party at a secret weed den in Manhattan, with branded pre rolls. I took the train in and ended up sitting in an oval with YL, Starker, VIP Skylark, and Laron. We listened to the album in a daze. YL asked me what I was listening to lately and I couldn’t even think. Starker rolled a Dutch Master. Old school. People had crazy concentrates, were feeling each others shirt material (there was a fashion bro contingent, Xen works at Undefeated), and someone offered me mixed up codeine and soda (I declined). I randomly went home with a gifted Carti Preme tee, chalking up the convo, experience and the merch as part of being in Xen’s orbit in the city. Everyone’s high, streetwear falls out of the sky, everyone is an artist.

A few days later Xen and I met up at CWW Radio Shop in Crown Heights, where Laron and I throw Generator, and the homie Atoosa snapped photos on film. We chatted in his dented Scion as he drove Atoosa to the train (generous), wearing Action Bronson wraparound shades and talking about how cool it is that DJ Red Alert still has a show on WBLS. Then we went back to my place and shot the shit for 90 minutes on my stoop before he went to a bbq in Bed Stuy. On my stoop I got to know Xen better, hearing about his parents’ immigration story (Greece, Philly, Queens), his assessment of where he grew up on Long Island (“I didn’t jack my high school”), and his experience going to Queens College as a star teaching student, whose videotaped practice classroom demonstration is currently part of the permanent archive of the program, because professors thought it was so good they wanted to show future students.

I learned how he doesn’t make beat packs for rappers, except Roc Marci, how weird it felt when he and Earl Sweatshirt locked themselves out of the house in LA that one time, and how he produces on Virtual DJ (I love that). I learned he has lately been vibing with his DJ uncle over ’80s music, and he counts as a formative experience hearing “Ether” when it dropped with his cousin, whose “sleek” Celica he coveted. I think Xen smoked through the whole recorded convo. Playback reveals an enthusiastic conversationalist with a digressive thought process that may be baseline or may have been influenced by the weed, and the fact he did two interviews the day before.

Now is his time. I think that’s why I wanted to connect for the photos and a dedicated chat at this point in his career, aside from hey here’s a new person in my life and I’m interested to know more. He seemed completely aware of his newly higher profile but what is he gonna do differently?

I think what he does may be trendy or bankable at times, and may at other times be marginal or under regarded. It’s a steady job, today, and he rocks stages internationally, but it’s not a scheme or even a strategic endeavor in any way other than to be respected by elders (“that’s special, they’re the inventors”) and to make 100% organic moves while creating an enduring catalog. He’s been in the game for a long time and he comes off uncompromised, focused on the music and not the clout, still making solo beat cassettes for fun (a new one surfaced this summer), while producing on major albums and continuing his own arc of basically timeless music. What else is there to do but roll another one and proceed?