Meet Xavier Ware

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Xavier Ware a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Xavier, great to have you with us today and excited to have you share your wisdom with our readers. Over the years, after speaking with countless do-ers, makers, builders, entrepreneurs, artists and more we’ve noticed that the ability to take risks is central to almost all stories of triumph and so we’re really interested in hearing about your journey with risk and how you developed your risk-taking ability.

Developing the ability to take risks, for me, came from many things, but if I had to narrow it down to the most important, I ‘d say it stems from my own life experiences so far, overcoming failures mentally, and trying my hardest to make things better around me. I am also committed to my personal growth and the goals I want to fulfill in my life which in certain cases I have taken or needed to take risk. I’d say I’ve always had to be a risk-taker due to the challenges I faced growing up and the environment I was in, but I’m maturing, getting older, and learning how to better utilize this ability in the journey I’m on right now.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I’m an artist and I go by “I Only Support” or “IOS” for short. I started taking music seriously around three years ago with a group of friends, and from there, I developed a relationship with it. I have always been in tune with music and have always tried to rap and do little things like that, but I wouldn’t say it’s anything compared to how I feel about it now. I never took it as seriously as I have recently. I try to experiment with everything: rapping, singing, and lately, I’ve been making a couple of attempts at producing, just trying to get the flow of it. If I’m being honest, I’ve been having a lot of fun with everything about music, and I just want to learn as much as I can about it, as well as develop my own skills related to music, and share it for everyone to listen to and watch my growth from their own perspective as I experiment and try different things.

Recently, I’ve been developing an idea for an EP I want to drop around the end of March or the beginning of April. It’s been difficult, but I’m enjoying the fact that I have to really put effort and commitment into it and that I need to work hard to find the sound I’m trying to convey to everyone. Even when I’m not recording or trying to make some kind of beat, I’m always listening to music, hearing different things, sounds, trying out various genres, and much more . Another thing I’ve been doing is expanding my genres and letting my mind get a feel for new things. When I first started with music, I only liked certain artists and genres, usually blocking out everything else. I only had a taste for what I liked and never gave other styles a chance, which is another obstacle I face as an artist while I work on my versatility and try different things. I kind of limited myself to a narrow range of music, and I’m realizing that with this music stuff, there’s always something new to hear or try. I also want to get into photography and video production, as I’ve been finding that interesting as well, and I feel like I can show much more of my music with visuals: music videos and small things like that, just to showcase more of my style and who I am as a person, including the things I like and my perspective on things, and everyone getting to see how I feel about things and problems I never talked about before. Aside from that, I just want to connect with more artists and producers. There are many of us making music, and I feel like there’s a lot of music waiting to be made.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

As someone who’s still fairly new to music and has a lot of things to encounter on my journey so far, I would definitely say that developing confidence has been a very impactful aspect of my music journey. It has also helped me in my real-life experiences as well. Confidence took me a long way once I truly embraced this skill for myself and realized I would definitely need it. I used to be a very shy, quiet, and laid-back kid; I didn’t talk to many people and only had a couple of friends whom I still talk to today. So, when I got into music, it was different. This time around, I was serious, and I actually wanted to take this somewhere. I had to get used to recording music around other people, showing them my music for opinions, sharing the different genres I’ve been listening to, and even showing friends the sounds and beats I tried to create. All of these experiences definitely required confidence, and I’m grateful that it stuck with me over time; now I’ll always be confident in my music.

Patience is another significant factor I had to keep in mind when starting music. Things won’t always sound how you want them to the first time. Every song won’t be created in one day, and every beat won’t sound perfect right away. You won’t always get the plays or views you want when you drop a new single, and your album or EP won’t always perform as you expected. But I learned that I just have to be patient with this; it takes time and effort, and you must genuinely love it to stick with it. In my mind, I believe everything comes when it’s meant to, and everyone will eventually be recognized for their contributions. However, if you can’t cultivate patience, you’ll quickly lose interest. I went through many phases where I just wanted to quit music, or I found myself in droughts of not recording because I thought whatever I did wouldn’t make a difference.

For my last point, I would say dedication is crucial. You really have to want it to achieve success in today ‘s environment because if you don’t put in the work, there are another hundred artists who will. You ‘ll be the one missing out . At first, music was just fun for me – doing it with my friends, trying new things, and seeing what would happen . But over time, I’ve definitely developed dedication towards my music and my career as an artist. There are a lot of things I want to accomplish in music, and I will pursue those goals to the best of my ability.

Advice I’d give to anyone new to the journey is just be you. Make the things you like represent your style, even if everyone isn’t in tune with it yet. Just keep going ; you’ll hear many different things about what you create, from people liking it to sometimes even people hating on it. But in the end, if you really love it, none of that should bother you because you’re doing it for you. The only difference is that you want to create something with it as well, and I feel everyone can do that if they really put forth the work.

What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?

I’d honestly just say that I, as a person, have genuinely grown as a person and definitely matured a lot. There are many different things I’ve been facing and going through lately, and I know if this were 12 months ago, I would have reacted very differently and done things I would later regret. However, I’ve really been focusing on my own path working, trying to get my own space figured out and somewhat isolating myself from everyone unless we’re close or talk normally it’s a lot I want to get done but also comes many distraction. I’ve had a lot of time to learn about myself and fix many things I never realized were negative before. I’ve also analyzed and learned about other people I surround myself with to determine if they should still be around me. Lately, I’ve directed my focus toward my music and the real world. I’ve also become much more involved in my spiritual journey, learning more about that part of myself, as I always had a blind eye to it growing up and held a very different opinion on it. Maturity and my personal growth, however, have definitely been the biggest areas of development for me this past year, and I give myself credit for turning my back on a lot of foolish things I used to engage in, finding my own lane that I want to stay in and goals I want to fulfill. I’d say i’ve grown in a lot of different ways from before in a short amount of time while also juggling other different things going through the last month of my senior year of high school before graduating back in May, immediately moving right after I graduated and that not going as I planned and a lot of other things that i’ve been working with while trying to prepare myself for my future and my music and also transitioning out of my teenage years.

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