When Lil Xan broke into the music industry, he developed a huge fan base, but some Tupac fans expressed their ire against him, while others felt his name celebrated the use of drugs. The rapper had hinted about changing his name for a while, and he eventually went through with it. So, why did Lil Xan change his name to Diego?
Lil Xan’s adoption of his stage name
Lil Xan was born Nicholas Diego Leanos in Redlands, California, on Sept. 6, 1996. The rapper grew up poor, with his family living in motels. His family’s financial status resulted in him dropping out of school in the 9th grade and staying home for a long time, during which he worked as a street cleaner and sold drugs.
He then pursued photography to support his friends, who were rappers, but when his camera got stolen, he decided to venture into the industry to try his hand at rapping. Lil Xan adopted his stage name from the prescription drug alprazolam, whose trade name is Xanax.
He gained recognition through YouTube and SoundCloud when he released his song ‘Betrayed’ in 2017. The song charted at No. 64 on the Billboard Hot 100. The rapper sings a lot about the highly addictive drug Xanax in the song’s chorus.
Why Lil Xan dropped his stage name
In 2018, Lil Xan announced that he would be dropping his stage name in favor of his government name, Diego. At the time, the rapper stated that he was unsure about the name change saying in an interview, “I thought about changing my name to Diego. But for right now, I’ll stay Lil Xan. Later down the road, I’ll change it to Diego.”
The rapper thought about the name change as a reaction to the anti-opiate reaction sweeping the hip-hop community since the deaths of other rappers like Mac Miller and XXX Tentacion. Following Miller’s death, Diego felt it would be wise for him to kick his opioid addiction and be a good role model.
Speaking to TMZ, the rapper said he wanted to get help for his addiction, announcing that he would check into rehab for help. “I’ve been way worse in the past. I’ve actually been 10 times worse than what I’ve been now, but I want to do rehab just so I can get over this last little hump, like stretch so I could finally be back to Diego,” he said.
Later came in 2020 for the young rapper as he made the name change official through his Instagram account. “Baby I’m coming back better than ever. I’m officially changing my name to Diego,” he captioned his Instagram photo revealing that he was “restarting and reinventing” himself.
The rapper told Complex that his fan base had taken well to the name change and was already calling him by his government name. He also revealed that since the shift, he has felt himself grow, and after contemplating deleting his previous songs, which reference drugs, he decided to leave them up to showcase his growth.
What has Diego been up to?
After his initial announcement of a rebrand, Diego released his debut album, Total Xanarchy, which was a moderate commercial success. The album charted at number 10 on the Billboard 200. His mixtape Heartbreak Soldiers was released on July 8, 2018. In September of that year, the rapper announced that he was working on a tribute album to Miller titled Be Safe.
The album went into production limbo and was never released. In 2020, he announced that another album titled Sorry I Didn’t Quit was finished, but the project was also never released. In June 2022, Diego released his EP have a nice day working with emo rapper Chris Miles and rapper Lil Tracy.
