Nicholas Diego Leanos, better known as Lil Xan or simply Diego, is an American rapper, singer and songwriter of Mexican descent from Redlands, California. He is best known for his song "Betrayed", which was certified platinum by the RIAA and peaked at number 64 on the Billboard Hot 100. On April 6, 2018, Leanos released his debut studio album, Total Xanarchy. His stage name is derived from Xanax, the trade name of the prescription drugalprazolam.
Early life
Leanos was born on September 6, 1996, in Redlands, California, to Mexican parents. Growing up, Leanos was poor and lived in motels most of his childhood. He attended Redlands East Valley High School, but dropped out of high school in his freshman year, and spent several years at home unemployed. Leanos took a job as a street cleaner and sold drugs before he began rapping. Leanos later pursued a photography career in support of several friends who were rappers. He eventually had his camera stolen, and chose to begin rapping in lieu of investing in a new camera.
Career
Leanos began to gain recognition through platforms such as SoundCloud and YouTube. His popularity grew after the release of the music video for his song "Betrayed" in August 2017. The song peaked at 64 on the Billboard Hot 100. In an interview with XXL, Leanos announced his debut albumTotal Xanarchy. The album includes collaborations with artists such as Diplo and Swae Lee. In December 2017, Leanos announced his Total Xanarchy tour, which sold out in five hours according to Billboard. In 2018, Leanos considered changing his stage name to Diego in order to support his anti-drug message, however he has since expressed uncertainty toward officially going through with the pseudonym change. Leanos released his debut studio album, Total Xanarchy on April 6, 2018. Despite receiving generally negative reviews, it was a moderate commercial success, debuting at number ten on the Billboard 200. The following month in May 2018, Leanos announced the mixtape Heartbreak Soldiers which was released on July 8, 2018. In September 2018, Leanos announced he had been working on an album titled Be Safe as a tribute to Mac Miller, as these were the last words he said to Leanos before his death. Leanos has given a number of contradictory statements regarding his yet-unreleased sophomore album. Initially, he planned on releasing his Be Safe project in 2019, but the album entered production limbo and was ultimately never released. In November 2019, he announced his next album would be titled When September Ends and released an accompanying album cover, but this also never came to fruition. In January 2020, Leanos announced that his album was finished and that it would be called Sorry I Didn't Quit, revealing a new album cover that took inspiration from Lil Wayne's Sorry 4 the Wait. The album still remains unreleased as of July 2020, and no word has been heard of it since.
Artistry
Leanos has listed Pharrell Williams and N.E.R.D as early influences in hip hop, with other influences including Arctic Monkeys, Cage the Elephant and Queens of the Stone Age. Leanos has also described Drake and Mac Miller as musical inspirations. According to Pigeons & Planes, Leanos' music started off as "typical trap" and later shifted towards "a murkier, dream-like sound". The New Yorker has described Leanos as part of a "sad rap" movement.
Personal life
Leanos started dating singer and actress Noah Cyrus on June 30, 2018. The couple released the collaboration "Live or Die" in August 2018. They broke up in September 2018, with both parties accusing the other of being unfaithful; Leanos also claimed that the relationship was forced by the couple's record label, Columbia. However, weeks later he appeared to walk back this claim in an interview on Open Late with Peter Rosenberg, stating "Honest to God, I would say like most of the reason the breakup happened was because of me. It was my fault. We could have still been together, but I just feel like I fucked everything up. It also put me in a darker place because I was getting slammed left and right." He went on to say that he had "nothing but love for the Cyrus family." Leanos has been open about his former addiction to benzodiazepines as well as opiates. He was able to overcome his Xanax problem after two years of suffering from addiction. Leanos currently speaks out against Xanax abuse and urges people to stop using the drug altogether. In February 2019, Leanos announced that he and his then-fiancée Annie Smith were expecting a child. On April 6, Smith revealed that she had experienced a miscarriage, sharing the information about the incident via a video and photographs on Instagram. However, in a No Jumper interview weeks later, Leanos revealed he had suspicions that Smith had been faking her pregnancy; this came about after a number of the rapper's fans on social media pointed out that the couple's ultrasound photos looked identical to ones that could be found on Google. The pair eventually separated, with Leanos later claiming the relationship had been toxic. He began dating YouTube vlogger Gabby Parsons in November 2019.
