The next pop artist to takeover the radio’s Top 40 could be a San Jose hopeful. From turning heads at Eastridge Mall to concerts in London, San Jose resident Xavier Toscano dreams of opening for a Top 40 act like Usher and selling out the SAP Center.

Toscano, raised in East San Jose, absorbs the city’s diversity of cultures and poured that into his music, a sound reminiscent of club dance with a splash of techno beats. “The diversity of San Jose adds to the richness of the culture,” he said.

Toscano said he can’t help but love pop music, what he calls a powerful medium with a vast variety that grabs listeners of different backgrounds and links them to specific memories. “Pop music is literally the soundtrack of your life, whether you like it or not because, it’s all around you,” Toscano said. “I get bored easy and pop music changes.”

Toscano’s first big break came in 2008 at a Bollywood audition in Milpitas. Nudging his foot in the door of the entertainment world, he later booked commercials with Talent Plus agency, giving him enough money to hit the studio and record his music. More recently, his music was featured on an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

Embracing that he is the “crazy” one of the family, loving and devoting himself to music, Toscano learned to sing in choirs and dancing for fun. “There was always a keyboard in the house for vocal reasons, and I probably annoyed my family quite a bit,” he said.

Doing everything on his own with no manager or publicist, Toscano said he has been challenged constantly with marketing, gaining more than 12,000 twitter followers and 40,000 likes on Facebook. Working two full-time jobs as well as honing his craft, Toscano said the work is worth it.

“It’s not exhausting work if you love it,” he said. “I have no problem getting out of bed in the morning.”

Toscano writes his own music and tries to share a sense of vulnerability with many of his songs. “I write all my songs so a piece of me is in each song,” he said. “I will create stories or draw from personal experience.”

With big dreams in sight, he said he is hoping the clip in Keeping up with the Kardashians will boost him forward.  “This has the potential to blow up big-time,” he said.”I recently signed four publishing and licensing deals and one of them seems to have paid off.”

Toscano’s recent music video “Never Wanna Leave” is gaining some traction on YouTube. Watch here: