On their first collaboration, “You,” local artists Xahier and josh anthony share the heartbreak and hope of love on a 3-minute track.
“The message that we want to relay is to, “Don’t give up on love,” josh anthony said, who goes by Joshua Anthony Taitano Arroyo outside the music scene.
“We want our listeners to hear the song and immediately think of the person that had the most emotional impact on them in their love life,” added Xahier whose real name is Hanz Xavier Mercado.
The R&B track, which was released on May 30, was heavily influenced by R&B singer Giveon’s song “Like I Want You.” The track had a 6/8 time signature that caught both the artists’ attention and inspired them to create their own R&B track with the same time signature while giving it their own fresh take.
Their collaboration had its roots at Saint Paul Christian School, where they were schoolmates.
Since graduating, Xahier, 19, worked on a single with local artist Clawwwd titled “Go Back” in 2021 and a solo track called “Fall” in 2020.
Older by three years, josh anthony is a producer and singer who released a single with local artist gavin mangosong in February titled “333,” another single called “UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN” on New Year’s Day, and an EP titled “LONG LETTER” last November.
“We both talked about how we went through similar types of heartbreak and decided to write a song about it because writing songs about how we felt individually was what we did anyways, so it only made sense to work on a song together,” Xahier said.
“We got to more talking and decided mid-production that we should change the vibe of the song so that we could both express our emotions, which led to a more intimate writing that inspired us to finish this project,” josh anthony added.
Xahier and josh anthony had troubles combining their styles of music at first because the former specializes in modern R&B while the latter leans more toward indie/bedroom pop.
“We overcame our problem of combining styles of music by trial and error,” Xahier said. “We had many different versions of the song.”
“We then took the best parts of the ideas we had and perfected them in order to make the song sound cohesive while still being able to showcase our different styles of music,” josh anthony said.
They encourage audiences to get comfy while listening to “You.”
“We believe that it would be best to feel emotionally vulnerable wherever the listener feels comfortable,” Xahier said.
“We were emotional after listening to the final version of the song because we were finally able to produce a song that felt complete yet different and palatable to us,” josh anthony said. “We feel that the listeners would feel our emotions as well.”
Ron Rocky Coloma covers entertainment, lifestyle and artist features. Reach him at rcoloma@guampdn.com.
