In light of the news that there will be a new TV show documenting the life of XXXTentacion, Emily Parry takes a look at the controversy surrounding the rapper, and whether he actually warrants such attention.

Should a person’s skill subsume basic human decency? This is a question I have had to ask myself quite a lot recently, with what feels like actors and musicians being ousted as abusers, or racist, or sexist every other week. The case of XXXTentacion (Jahseh Onfroy) is no different, with his dramatic rise to fame with his debut single ‘Look At Me’, a heavily distorted and crude song bragging about his sexual conquests. The rapper’s success seemed to be that of an overnight phenomenon as the song began to climb the Billboard 100 Charts, until settling number 34, alerting to the public to his talent and cementing his relevance within popular culture.

XXXTentacion was 20 years old when he was attacked in what the police described as a random robbery. One of the assailants fired a shot that killed the rapper who was sitting in his car. Onfroy was pronounced dead after 5:30pm on the 18th of June 2018.

Personally, I was not aware of XXXTentacion until his death took the internet by storm, but the overwhelming grief surrounding his death painted him as a martyr, despite the allegations that he had beaten a pregnant woman, strangled her, falsely imprisoned and taken part in witness tampering. In response to the domestic abuse allegations the rapper said “I’mma f— y’all little sisters in they throats, I swear to God. I swear to God, everybody that called me a domestic abuser, I’m finna domestically abuse y’all little sister p—- from the back,”. When these allegations were proven through audio obtained by an acquittal the rapper gave, I was surprised to see that despite his violent behaviour people were happy to look past it and bestow upon him a legendary status. This attitude seems to stem largely from his untimely death – which allowed people to excuse his behaviour in the act of respecting his name. Despite the aggressive and violent behaviour he continued to showcase, he received praise and reward and now Onfroy has joined musical icons such as Michael Jackson, Bob Marley and Elvis Presley as one of the highest paid artists post mortem.

While the controversy surrounding the rapper died down in the months following his death, things began to spark up again when news of a casting call for an actor to portray XXXTentacion in a TV show was posted on Backstage.com. The advertisement called for “20; African American; rapper; confident yet not overtly cocky; Looking for applicants between 5’4″-5’8″. The pilot is scheduled to be shot between January and February of 2019 in Los Angeles, America. There seems to be a growing trend within the entertainment industry in the production of biopics of bands or musicians, most recently the release of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and the Elton John biographical film ‘Rocketman’ set be released in 2019. Queen and Elton John are members of the music industry that have made significant contributions to both music and society, whereas many people feel that XXXTentacion has not made those same contributions. Regardless of how people value his art and whether they agree with the accolades he may have received, the more important issue to focus on is that by creating a TV show chronicling his life, we are providing him and all he represents with a platform.

I realise that if you enjoy his work, you may feel guilty for listening to XXXTentacion or other rappers that fall into a similar category to him, as he is by no means the only controversial musician in pop culture today, but I am not suggesting that you give up listening to his music as it is important to be able to separate the content from the creator. The idea of boycotting the problematic figure is a very prominent movement throughout the entertainment industry, such as Kevin Spacey’s removal from ‘House of Cards’, Spotify removing artists such as R Kelly and Chris Brown from their streaming services and while I think in some cases this “boycotting” is justified, what is more important is that we are vigilant about not idolising or normalising these people’s behaviour as there is a wider social commentary that can be made, which is if you are rich enough, famous enough, or in the case of XXXTentacion, dead enough, you can get away with almost anything and come out the other end unscathed. We need to hold these people accountable for their actions, in order to not fail them, but more importantly so we do not fail their victims.

Emily Parry

Image Courtesy of Jack Mckain