From performing in rock bands to solely building a music career from scratch, Lil Xtra has turned heads with his consistent output of quality material. The craftsman behind the microphone is Clayton, a 23-year-old artist from Georgia, who fuses his versatile voice with rap and rock in a refreshing way. Despite the minimalist trend in song-writing, Lil Xtra stands out with the lyrical aspect of his work as he tells brutally honest stories through complex musical compositions. It was this artistic choice that actually prevented him from quitting music. “I needed to change what I was doing and as soon as I started to be more honest with myself, people started listening.” This turning point is embodied in the mesmerizing song “I Hope You Know I Mean It” which currently has 300K plays on SoundCloud.
Lil Xtra’s last full-length album Make It Through Fall encompasses all the emotionally exhausting challenges that he has been going through in his personal life. The honesty behind his work coupled with the amount of effort Clayton puts into his art proves that he is a rare streak of light in the SoundCloud scene. The guitar work throughout the project is custom made by Lil Xtra and the rest of the production is done with his talented close friend Kado. “We put together the drums and everything else for it. Then I record and I do all my own mixing which is why it takes so long for me to put something out. I work on my music every day for at least 4,5 hours.”
Music was once merely a fun hobby for Lil Xtra, but he eventually received a mysterious injury at the age of 18 which changed everything. Clayton had been playing a lot of hockey and baseball in his teenage years, and one day he woke up with inexplicable pain in his shoulder. That one day led to change his whole life. “I had surgery on my shoulder but it didn’t heal at all for a long time. A year after it, my right arm started hurting and then about 5 months ago in August both my knees went out. I can’t figure out what’s wrong with them, doctors can’t find anything and I can’t barely walk right now… That’s probably the main area where most of my lyrics come from. My life is not going the direction I wanted it to.”
Nonetheless, these circumstances served as a boost for Clayton’s breathtaking art. It is enough to listen to the opening track “Fearless” from that album in order to get an idea of the painful inspirations behind Lil Xtra’s work. He channels the inner angst through his craft and that can be seen in the following lines from the song:
“But my shoulder’s torn and my heart feels worn dunno what I’m gonna do about surgery
And you’re not gonna listen, think I’m just bitching, guess there’s no use pretending”
When it comes to collaborations, Lil Xtra often works with the talented Ukranian producer sorrow bringer. In particular, the tracks “All my Fault”, “I Will Look The Other Way” and “fit for this life”, which features yesterday, stand out as incredibly cohesive pieces. Clayton has also made two songs with the young rising star sadeyes. “Stylistically we are different but it’s similar enough that it works together quite well. I feel like a lot of times people just don’t fit well on a song together but I do really enjoy working with him because we actually fit.” Hence why Lil Xtra is not huge on collaborating with other artists since he also views such tracks as “side quests” that are not a part of the main story.
Upon a fair bit of listening, it is perhaps self-evident that Lil Xtra draws a lot of inspiration from the 1990s and early 2000s rock. Growing up he was listening to Blink-182 and Green Day. “I was into faster pop-punk stuff like that. When I hit teenage years, I got into heavier rock like System Of A Down and Slipknot. I’ve always enjoyed anything that was a good catchy song such as Third Eye Blind and I only started listening to rap when I turned 16. At first, it was mainstream rap like Eminem and Lil Wayne but then I started digging in a bit deeper and listening to stuff like Bone Thugs-n-Harmony.” Lil Xtra also considers the folk punk band The Front Bottoms as the most influential point of inspiration. They helped him realize that an artist can write a song about multiple things in a non-linear pathway while still maintaining a meaningful and conceptual theme. To illustrate this, you can have a listen to Clayton’s song “Different”:
To conclude, Lil Xtra is undoubtedly one of the more multifaceted artists out there who shows versatility and true introspection. There is plenty more to come from Clayton in 2019 as he plans “to release about 3 songs over the next month and a half”. In the meantime, you can check his most recent music video of the song “Don’t Get Up” which was shot and directed by Jack Rottier: