Lucky Seven Magazine

“Now I’m in an era where I am empowered, I am confident, and I know what I want. I’m older and I have more wisdom, and that’s the driving force behind it. I feel more grown…like this is the grown and sexy era,” she said. 

On both sides of her family, she has a strong musical link, with her grandmother in the Philippines having an in-home studio available to local musicians, and she grew up hearing her dad fill the house with the sounds of the piano and drums. Growing up, she was always found creatively expressing herself, whether it was through theatre or dance, and as she has grown with her career, her love for music deepened.

“I was always singing, but never tried writing,” BxRod began. “I would always do theatre, but when I imagined myself doing the arts, it wasn’t necessarily doing Broadway. I always thought about making my own music.” 

After realizing the direction she wanted to go in high school, she took matters into her own hands and began to take her interest in music to Soundcloud where she would post early tracks to get her music beyond the confines of her brain, her phone and a closed closet door. During this exploration period, she heard from the Spanish artist Cråneo, who was looking for a vocalist. She sent him vocals for the song “Cristal,” and it ended up amassing hundreds of thousands of streams. 

“That was the first time I felt like I can do this,” she said. “If I did that with recording on my phone, in my closet, I should just try.” 

What year was it that you saw things changing for you? 

BxRod: I think that came out in 2016, so I was in college at this point and I was studying the arts. So I was getting that curriculum in but also outside of school trying to do my own music. It was during that time I decided to commit. 

How did it feel to make that committing transition? 

BxRod: It was a gut feeling, and I feel like it was always there, which initiated me to start doing [music]. But when I started seeing it positively affect others and listeners; like people I’ve never would have met that I met through music and committing in that way, I feel like my life was changed. 

Looking back at that very first starting point in your career, How do you think you’ve grown?

BxRod: Working in this industry, in a male-dominated environment, I feel like it made me feel like if I can go deal with them and come out of it strong, I think I can handle anything. I feel like it reinforced being confident, even when you’re not, just keep going back and create. 

Pursuing art has always been her north star, a reality she has seen on the horizon, but she still needs to figure out how to get there. As she navigated through the music industry, she became more sure of herself, she found that music was the constant in her life and something she could always rely on, even with its ebbs and flows. 

While finding her way to her top goal, she has always maintained a sense of curiosity in herself and her music. “I feel like the best thing you can do, and what I did, and what I do as an artist, is to just keep exploring,” she said. “It’s such a calling. When you pursue things from a genuine place, everything will just come out right.” 

Even after she experienced that moment of virality early in her career, it gave her the validation that her work could enter the lives of people from all over the world, but she soon realized that everything she releases won’t always yield the same result. But coming to that realization didn’t stop her journey, it made her keep going.

Even amid everything that is going well, you still have to buckle down and keep doing what you’ve been doing. 

BxRod: It’s honestly been so empowering pursuing music. I feel like I’ve learned so much, not just about myself but about the world, art, its impact on people, and how it can reach people. It really encapsulates the human experience.

What do you think you’re biggest lesson that you’ve learned up until this point?

BxRod: The best things come from a selfless place. When I talk about creating, yeah certain things call me to do it, but really, you’re just a vessel. Once you make it, it’s not yours anymore, it’s for the world. The world wanted you to make it, so you make it, but it’s not for you. 

“It’s bigger than you, it’s not about you, it’s about everything else,” BxRod said closing her thoughts.

In December of 2023, she released her Live in San Francisco EP where she did acoustic versions of her songs where she dove into details of loving, yearning and longing that plague the lives of so many people in their twenties. When she decided to put those pieces of her life into the music, she was going through the motions of life, which created songs like “incredible” from the 2023 EP Static Atmosphere and the single from the same year, “Devon.” 

“Anytime I create, especially when I collaborate with people, I try to harness what’s happening in that present moment,” she started. “A lot of the stuff that I write is freestyle, I don’t spend a lot of time writing and thinking, I just feel it and it comes out.” 

When making the songs, “Devon” and “Incredible,” she was on a journey of self-discovery and self-empowerment. Looking back at the music from the last year with the eyes and outlook on life she has today, she feels like making those songs was a way to help preserve some of her innocence as she grew into a young woman. 

In terms of discovering yourself, what have you found on this journey of being in your early/mid-twenties? Do you still like writing your thoughts? 

BxRod: What I’ve found is that growth is never-ending. I felt like life would be so boring if there was always an end goal, and you do it, and then that’s it. I think we’re always changing and evolving. I feel like I’ve tried to lean into that and there are always moments of discomfort, but there are always so many breakthroughs and evolutions that you can allow yourself to go through and live so many lives. 

Your life from a year or two ago is so different from your life now, what would you call this chapter in your life? What would you call that one and what would you call this one?

BxRod: That era before, I felt like I was trying to learn myself and be confident. You know? Growing pains, and things like that, trying to empower myself. Now I’m in an era where I am empowered, I am confident, and I know what I want. I’m older and I have more wisdom, and that’s the driving force behind it. I feel more grown, like this is the grown and sexy era. One of the things that I realized in the transition between those periods was that you have the power to create the life that you want. You can take control and make the life that you want, so this is the grown and sexy era, this is the confident era. You know? 

When did you see that change happening for yourself? 

BxRod: Probably when I started making more money. [Laughs]

Music has always been constant in her life, through her familial links and her love for hearing the words accompanied by the music. “I was always captivated by lyrics, and drawn to powerful writing,” she said. “I remember having a moment as a young girl, liking to sing, and listening to Bjork for the first time. At first, I didn’t know how to feel about it because I felt like her music and her voice was so experimental, but everyone loved it.” 

When BxRod was making her way through music, finding  people like Bjork helped her realize that art is boundless and that being successful in music is not always accompanied by a traditionally palatable sound. Taking what she learned from the artists she loved early in her life, helped her become more of a well-rounded one herself. As she found the music she loved as a fan, she was drawn to Alicia Keys’ Songs in A Minor, Britney Spears’ Oops!… I Did It Again, Aaliyah and a plethora of women in pop and R&B that lit up her world with sound. 

As BxRod continues in her musical career, she is creating a world for her sound to exist and a place for new and old fans to find her. Her music is never something anyone can pinpoint for sure, so when creating her music, she is crafting a world that immerses the audience with every song. Whenever someone presses play on a BxRod track, they are all brought together by one common element, the sound. 

“A lot of people that resonate with my voice, or my lyrics or my music are brought together by that in itself,” she said. “The people who are drawn to it, are people who like a lot of things.”