Philip Xu, professionally known as Wei Xu is an up-and-coming artist from Chicago who has made a name for himself in the indie scene. He wasn’t always planning on becoming a singer until he joined the vocal group “Musicality,” which was America’s Got Talent season 11 Semi-Finalist. Through Musicality, he was able to perform around the country for events such as the Lollapalooza Music Festival, Young Entertainer's Award, and McDonald’s Worldwide Convention opening for big-name artists like Bruno Mars, Imagine Dragons, Jennifer Hudson, and many more. After competing on the show, this sparked his interest in continuing to be more than a singer but an artist himself. He's gotten his influence from well-known artists such as Frank Ocean, Joji, V of BTS, and ZAYN.
When he started producing, Wei looked for many outlets to express his emotions in different aspects of his music. Releasing his first album, “Ballad 1,” in 2018, he took inspiration from Joji, who shared visualizers for his fans on YouTube to watch, which allowed his fans to interpret his music in many ways. This inspired Wei to write music differently as well as visually. Wei has used a variety of color palettes to represent each release.
Since his music career with Pop, Wei has adapted to many other genres, such as R&B. For majority of his career, Wei has idolized Frank Ocean for his unique music production and ability of storytelling. This plays a big role for Wei as he has consistently released projects with visualizers and music videos.
Whether it's streaming his music or going to his live performances, Wei Xu wants to be a source for people to escape from reality with no worries, even if it’s just for 3 minutes or the whole night. As an Asian-American artist, there are a few to look up to, as many are still unrecognized. Wei’s goal is to be a representation of Asian artists in the Western culture of music.