Xavier Omär is a provider. In his personal life, he’s a husband and new father. In his professional life, he is a singer and songwriter.
It’s the day of Omär’s b l u r r EP release and he’s out shopping for furniture for his family’s new home in Dallas, Texas. They moved there just days before our interview.
“I’m still in full transition mode,” Omär tells Rated R&B over the phone. He says the EP’s title reflects his feelings about his new life chapter.
“It has been an absolute blur in learning fatherhood,” shares Omär, who welcomed his daughter with his wife last fall. “It’s been a blur in kind of relearning marriage, which nobody told me about that part. Once you have a kid in a marriage, obviously some things have to change because her body has changed and her needs from you, at least temporarily, have changed.”
Omär admits that fatherhood has kept him pretty busy. While that role will always be his priority, he doesn’t want to neglect his fans.
“I have to provide for my family and I have to be there for my fans. I don’t have the bandwidth to put together a full album right now, but I wanted to put a body of work out to the people,” says Omär of the EP’s purpose.
He recorded the six-track project at his home studio, including an interlude from Kyle Dion. “Those are the five I really trusted that I wanted to put out.”
B l u r r is the follow-up to his 2020 album, if You Feel, and his first project since exiting RCA Records. (He signed to the label in 2018 and announced it the following year.) On if You Feel, Omär wanted listeners to “fully feel every emotion” on the album. This time, on b l u r r, he hopes they can connect to it in any way.
“If any of these things are a moment in your life or it’s something that you can relate to, I just hope you connect to that,” he says. “Even if it’s just one song, connect to that song and let it be something that helps you.”
In Rated R&B’s interview with Xavier Omär, the singer-songwriter breaks down every song on his b l u r r EP.
1. “A Dream” featuring Pat Junior
Producers: Jay Versace and Oxthello
I got connected with Jay Versace through [Twitter]. I didn’t know [if] he knew who I was or wanted to work. I just kind of took a chance there. We’ve gone through a few different records. [“A Dream”] is the one that really stuck with me. It made me think about times in life where it was like, “I wanna be progressing,” but in reality, it’s not really happening. It’s super melancholy. The idea was a person had a dream [about] this thing that they wanted, but then they woke up [and] the thing wasn’t even real. It was hard to kind of even explain that to Pat [Junior] because it’s a super abstract feeling. It’s not very absolute. But he ran with it and painted the picture so beautifully on the song. I couldn’t have picked anybody better. It was one of my favorite songs to record.
2. “A Concept”
Producers: Sango, Savon, and Kaelin Ellis
Typically, I pull from my life. I didn’t necessarily have to on this song (laughs). The beat was titled “Concept.” A lot of times, I do pull from the title of the beat. I was just trying to think of how I could work that in. I was watching The Ultimatum on Netflix. It’s like all these twenty-year-olds saying, “Marry me or leave,” which is ridiculous. They think they’re with the person they want to be with but feel like they’re missing something from that person. Now here comes this other person they’re experimenting with [who is] giving them [what they’re missing.] This song is about the frustration within the relationship because you want to make it work, but it feels like it’s not working.
I took that idea of these frustrations, and instead of just holding them back, I just give them to my partner. I wrote it from a woman’s perspective to allow her to give off everything she’s thinking and make it plain and clear on what’s going on. I think part of love that people don’t understand is that type of communication helps build the relationship because it’s still honesty, and you’re sharing your emotions.
3. “Kyle Dion’s Voice Note”
Producers: N/A
Kyle will drunk text me or [send me a] drunk voice note a few times a year, especially if he hears my music. Him singing “Blind Man” drunk is just enough for me (laughs). I knew that people would enjoy that. Plus, I had been telling him for a while, “I’m gonna put one of these on the project,” because I have a lot of them from him.
4. “Tarantino”
Producers: Sango and Stwo
That record is basically the story of my dad and my mom. When [my dad] was in college, he saw my mom on campus. He went to talk to her, but my mom was already engaged. Her fiance had left. They were in Mississippi [and] he had left. I believe he was somewhere in the Midwest working to make money for their wedding and money for the marriage. So while he’s gone, my dad steps in and does his thing. The song is me trying to be a modern version of my dad in that situation. I thought it was an interesting story. Once I found it out, I was like, “Nah, this is crazy.” I have confidence, but I don’t have that kind of confidence. If you’re engaged, I’m probably just gonna leave you alone. He didn’t care. So yeah, it is a fun song.
5. “Feelings 4 You”
Producers: Bizness Boi, Derelle Rideout, Pelham & Junior, Billy Blunt, and Justin Crawford
That’s pretty much the story of me and my wife. We were friends at first. I tried to talk to her a few times. She [wasn’t] having it. I think I did that two or three times, and she just wasn’t for it. I had given her this one last plea type of thing, which is crazy because when a woman tells me ‘no,’ it’s just no and I’m good. For whatever reason, I could not let her go. I just kept going for it. Once I got to that point of just like, “If she says no, after all of this, just move on.” So I did it, and she didn’t give me a response either way. So I was like, “All right, cool. I’m gonna let it go. She just wants me to be a friend, so I’m just a friend.” I think within five days after that, we were together. I was on tour, saw her in person, and pretty much that was it (laughs). After all those feelings, she came to a decision as well. That song is about me giving that final plea: “I know that we’re friends, but I want this. I think that this can work, and I think you want this too.”
6. “Not In LA”
Producers: ROM and Shaan
It made me feel really introspective. I thought about other people, as well as myself, being at a point where you have to realize that you can’t run away from your problems because you are the common denominator. So the idea is that, “Oh, I can’t wait to leave my city because once I leave my city, I go chase my dreams. Maybe I’ll just move to LA. I’m not gonna have problems. It’ll be good.” If you are the common denominator, it doesn’t matter where you are because all those things you are running away from are still there. Even if you think it’s gonna be best for you, the problems are still gonna be there because you have things you gotta fix. So that was the basis of the song, and at the end, just leaning into my faith.
Stream Xavier Omär’s b l u r r EP below.
