Leanos's stage name is derived from
Xanax, the trade name of the prescription drug alprazolam. 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 number 64 on the
Billboard Hot 100. Following this success, he signed with
Columbia Records in November 2017 for a three-album deal worth over $1 million. In an interview with
XXL later that month, Leanos announced his debut album would be titled
Total Xanarchy In December 2017, Leanos announced his
Total Xanarchy tour, which sold out in five hours, according to
Billboard. however, he has since expressed uncertainty about officially going through with the pseudonym change. The following month in May 2018, Leanos announced the mixtape
Heartbreak Soldiers, which dropped on all platforms on July 8, 2018. Later in 2018 he released the EP
Xanarchy Militia, and in 2019 he released the mixtape
Heartbreak Soldiers Pt. 2 and the EP
Fireworks, all of which were released exclusively on SoundCloud without any involvement from Columbia. Leanos promised to release a second album multiple times over his career, but each time they experienced delays or cancellations. In September 2018, Leanos announced he had been working on an album titled
Be Safe as a tribute to
Mac Miller (whose last words to Leanos before his overdose earlier that month were "be safe"), but the project entered production limbo and was eventually scrapped. 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, but this project appears to have been scrapped as well. On June 24, 2022, Leanos and fellow emo rapper
Chris Miles released the collaborative EP
have a nice day. It includes a feature from
Lil Tracy and was supported by the single "Miss Me". In August 2024, Leanos announced that his second album, entitled
Diego, was finished, and would receive an early release on the independent streaming platform Even Music on September 6, 2024. It was released on all platforms on September 19, marking his first full-length album release in over six years. Later that year, Leanos signed to the independent record label 3rd Eye Recordings. == Artistry ==