Is XXXTentacion A Legend? (Article)
What up one & all. Sky Bento here once again on the check in, please say the Bento. Hope you & yours are doing well, protecting your mental health, knowing the vibes, drinking your water and all that just like the late XXXTentacion would’ve wanted. Today marks four years since he’s been gone. Crazy right. Watching his Hulu documentary really showed me just how much larger than life he was. Even in life, people were throwing the word legend around and this is even truer without him here in the physical. But is he a legend? The argument persists. I’m here today to try and quiet down the noise.
As always these are just my opinions and do not reflect the views of TDN as a staff, label, and as a m************ crew. Feel free to sound off about how I’m wrong over on Twitter @plzsaythebento … but for now let’s get right to it.
So let’s start with this. Yes. XXXTentacion is a legend. But why? Well, let’s pause and think for a second. What even is a legend? It’s just a story that gets passed down from generation to generation really. Over time, the story may gain more and more significance or even be forgotten completely outside of a few elders still able to speak the words with their lips. Legends come in all shapes and sizes. I’ve seen some weak ass legendary Pokémon. No doubt. But when we here the word legend we tend to think big. Literally. In rap we think of The Notorious B.I.G. & 2Pac. We think of Jay Z & Nas. We think of Kanye West & Lil Wayne. We think of Drake, J. Cole & Kendrick Lamar. Legends of their generation. At this point you’d be stupid to argue against any of the names I’ve mentioned, but in 2009-2011 when Drake was arguably peaking and at his most influential you might get scolded for making such an assertion. But in hindsight we can look back and see the splash with all of its ripples still noticeable today. At the time, Drake presented something different that the previous generation may not have taken too kindly to. And that something different opened the floodgates for the musical landscape we have today. For those of us who remember having Drake on our Myspace playlists back in 2010, that legend is most definitely being passed down to our children. Will they care? Maybe. More often than not, they’ll form their own memories and tell their own stories of music they’ve connected to personally rather than secondhand.
Which brings us to the late Jahseh Onfroy aka XXXTentacion, the highest streaming artist in Soundcloud history. Following the blog era, Soundcloud was really what controlled the culture. XXXTentacion used Soundcloud formed a cult. He’s said it himself. He connected with the youth on a deeply emotional level through his music by making music based on pure emotion - often rage. Then he began to explore sadness while his fans followed and likely were also first learning to cope with depression via music. While not the first artist to do so, he was certainly a lot of people’s first experiences with sad music. This can be said about many artists, but it’s something special to do so in the information age via a website. It’s even more special to do it as raw as XXX did, what with the distortion and the unpolished mixes and all. It really felt as if XXX didn’t care, he just needed to get the emotions out. I’m sure this came off as very relatable to so many people who again were just beginning to really discover music on their own. XXXTentacion was also very intentional about the way he connected with his fans and the message he spread to them, especially in his later years when he had turned over a bit of a new leaf.
For an artist so strongly devoted to connecting with his fans to undergo such growth alongside them likely in the most formative years of their life is going to leave an impact on them. It’s going to leave enough of an impact for them to tell it to their kids when they grow up (likely while complaining about whatever the new music of the time is). The trinity of XXX, Peep & Juice passing will be remembered by many for years to come, but XXXTentacion’s versatility and character arc specifically will be passed down to a new generation one day. From embracing his identity as a villain and creating a cult out of a fanbase to preaching to his fans about positivity and love to tragically getting murdered as he was still on the rise and pushing himself artistically, XXXTentacion underwent a true journey in his career. Whether you like his music, hate his music, hate his character, or just don’t care, you have to admit its easy to see the impact he made on a whole lot of people (children or otherwise). And if sickos like Ted Bundy and other assorted [white] serial killers can become damn near pop culture icons with documentaries and Family Guy references to them, then I think a [Black] artist like XXXTentacion deserves to be remembered for the lives he has undoubtedly saved.
I think XXXTentacion deserves to be remembered as a legend.