LIFE BEFORE FAME

ROY XU was born in Toronto, Canada and attended the Rhode Island School of Design. With a breadth of obligations, the artist travels frequently and enjoys working from The Dominican Republic alongside his wife. Besides illustration, XU records music as MIRIAMDOLA, featuring with NINA PROTOCOL and BANDCAMP and having collaborated with JACK ZEBRA, T$, BENGALTIGER, TEK LINTOWE, EERA, CRISE17, ZACHY ZOO, KYLE, and LIAM. He received his long-awaited green card in 2024, became a resident artist at CHINATOWN SOUP, and, in August of the same year, exhibited his studio show at SOUP GALLERY with a live music performance.

Try to capture the truth; know the numbers are real. Abrade lead on coarse paper, sheet by sheet. Take four hale pencils and make them disappear forever. Talk like a boss and walk like one. Never bargain — only negotiate.

Eat three meals a day. Reproduce professional business cards after misprinting the initial batch. Work for yourself — not a homespun children’s author, an unlicensed Chinatown plumbing company, or a stage manager’s Zionist theater group forced off-Broadway and into police protection. Register an LLC importing shower heads, furniture, and deep-tissue neck massagers, developing an understated yet effective TikTok presence. At long odds, achieve virality, combining some fine art intuition, alluring products sourced directly from amicable factories, and a long-supportive partner.

Buy a modest property in Cabarete, Puerto Plata. Enjoy each success with an equally hard-working wife. Use the house for occasional holidaying as well as a temperate AirBnb income. But despite a widening spread of responsibilities, don’t forget the physical, closest to home. Train boxing diligently; build upon technical defense and footwork. Attend to your vessel, be equally strong, as in spirit, at every sinew enclosing your heart. Wrap your ribs in powerful chest and shoulder, hold your paramour dear, lift a faltering friend. Be known a heavy hitter. Buy a rifle, personal preference, just in case. Smoke East Asian cigarettes loyally but pray to escape lung cancer. Reach 180 pounds and step in the ring for an amateur fight, as you vowed you one day would.

Indeed, one good man, sincerely good, can substitute for many. A man who wants to be housekeeper, wants a big dog to take care of. A man determined to set 200 grand aside before hoping to father a child. Commit to marriage, make it special, over, over — put a wife and mother in as many designer clothes as can communicate this profound affection. Step out together, head turners. Return home to two children and share wisdom. Teach them to box too.

Humbly managing both business savvy and art stardom, the world, in all its spotty reserve, opens. There are new projects to enjoy, not battle: begin a boutique toy label with sister Audrey; contend in the Rap of China TV Show and win (or at very least finish a finalist).

Life before fame is formidable. The devil lays back, staring up at a ceiling beneath our feet. The dirty work isn’t his. Little ghouls sway through the corners with us, watch us all unfold. Things were different in Vietnam, hand to mouth, strained; in Toronto, deported, tempted by those who venture up to deliver test and consequence. Make it through most unscathed and it’s a gift, but it’s also a coup.

Make it through having boxed your way out and it’s even better. And after the fighting, and all happening that is good, stay as long as you can but go ahead and meet your brother once again. Someday, we might all be there, together, sharing time after fame.