The 477 on XXXTentacion
Jahseh Dwayne Onfroy (born January 23, 1998),
known professionally as XXXTentacion / and often referred to as X, is an
American rapper, singer and songwriter.
Born and raised in Plantation, Florida, Onfroy spent
most of his childhood in Lauderhill, Florida. He began writing music after
being released from a youth correction center and eventually released his first
song on the audio distribution platform SoundCloud in 2014.[8][9][10] He is a
popular figure in SoundCloud rap, a trap scene that takes elements of lo-fi music
and harsh 808s.
Onfroy released his debut album, 17, on August
25, 2017.[ Onfroy's second album, ? was released on March 16, 2018, It debuted
at number one on the Billboard 200, with its singles "Sad!" and
"Changes" peaking at numbers 7 and 37 on the Billboard Hot 100
respectively.
Jahseh Dwayne Onfroy was born on January 23,
1998 in Plantation, Florida to Jamaican parents, Dwayne Ricardo Onfroy and
Cleopatra Freeman. He has three siblings with one being half, shared
paternally. Onfroy was mainly raised by his grandmother — due to his mother's
financial situation — in Pompano Beach, Florida and Lauderhill, Florida. He is
of Syrian, Egyptian, Indian, German, Jamaican and Italian descent. When Onfroy
was six years old, he stabbed a man attempting to attack his mother and was
eventually put into a youth program before being forced to live with his
grandmother.
Onfroy's interest in music initially started
after his aunt persuaded him to begin attending school choir and later church
choir. He was soon kicked out of the school choir, after attacking another
student. Onfroy was later expelled from middle school after a series of
physical altercations. He was subsequently enrolled into Sheridan House Family
Ministries by his mother for over six months. Onfroy began to listen to
nu-metal, hard rock and rap during his time at Sheridan House Family
Ministries, which led to him attempting to learn the piano and guitar.
Onfroy attended Piper High School until he dropped
out in the tenth grade. He described himself as a "misfit" during
that time, citing how quiet he was despite being popular and regularly involved
in physical confrontations. Onfroy
wasn't the athletic type and has said he was insecure and depressed during his
time in high school.
Onfroy's career as a music artist began in 2014
after he spent a year in a juvenile detention center for gun possession
charges. Whilst in juvenile detention, Onfroy met Stokeley Clevon Goulbourne,
another artist known as Ski Mask The Slump God. During their time together,
Onfroy and Goulbourne became good friends and began freestyling. Recalling his
time in detention, Onfroy said that he was respectful to the officers and staff
and used to protect people from other inmates, including a homosexual cellmate,
whom Onfroy later beat for being "suspicious".
That same year, following his release from a
juvenile detention center, Onfroy and Goulbourne met up again under the belief
they were going to commit a string of home invasions for monetary gain though
Onfroy eventually bought a Blue Snowball microphone and began recording music
which convinced Stokeley to do the same. After Onfroy adopted a moniker
XXXTentacion, he uploaded his first official song, called Vice City on
SoundCloud. Speaking on his decision to abandon the life of criminality for
music, Onfroy said that he felt like music was a better outlet for his feelings
and then girlfriend, Geneva Ayala was someone who helped him realize that. He
would then continue uploading a small snippets of his songs that would either
soon release or remain unreleased. Onfroy eventually joined fellow Southern
Florida rapper and close friend Ski Mask The Slump God's group Very Rare,
before breaking off and starting the Members Only collective, which Ski Mask
joined.
Onfroy released his first official extended
play (EP), called The Fall on November 21, 2014. Onfroy released one
collaboration album with Ski Mask the Slump God, called Members Only Vol. 1
before releasing Members Only Vol. 2, in 2015 with several members of the
growing Members Only collective. In 2016, he released the EP Willy Wonka Was a
Child Murderer, with music heavily inspired by heavy metal and indie music. In
2016, Onfroy quit his job as a call center operator due to his then growing
music career and moved in with rapper Denzel Curry.
In July 2016, Onfroy was arrested and charged
with robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. After posting $10,000 bail,
Onfroy continued to work on his debut independent album, Bad Vibes Forever
which had a slated October 31, 2016 release date. The album missed the release
date and was delayed due to Onfroy being arrested in early October on charges
of false imprisonment, witness tampering, and aggravated battery of a pregnant
victim.
In 2017, Onfroy re-released his song,
"Look at Me". The song peaked at number 34 on US Billboard Hot 100
and the Top 40 of the Canadian Hot 100. The single helped him gain more
popularity due to accusations of Canadian rapper Drake using a similar rap flow
in his then unreleased song, "KMT" that he previewed at a concert in
Amsterdam with feature guest appearance from a British rapper Giggs.
On April 18, 2017, after his release from
prison, he released three more songs on SoundCloud. In an interview with WMIB,
Onfroy announced that he was working on the studio albums Bad Vibes and 17; as
well as mixtape, I Need Jesus. In an interview three days after his release
from prison, X said to XXL, saying “I got this really really, really good album
called 17. That’s more of an alternative, R&B sound — Then I’ve got this
mixtape called I Need Jesus, which is mainly rap and the underground sound I
did."
Onfroy announced his first nationwide tour on
April 28, 2017. The tour, titled "The Revenge Tour" had 26 tour dates
overall and was widely publicized due to numerous controversies which included
a rapper being assaulted, Onfroy was
being involved in an altercation on stage that led to him being knocked
unconscious and an audience member stabbed, Onfroy being thrown into a
barricade by security and Onfroy punching a fan. He announced the cancellation
of the rest of the tour dates due to his cousin being shot on June 24, 2017[48]
though the final tour date in Broward County, Florida still went ahead and was
later streamed on the watchthemusic (WAV) app.
Onfroy was named as the tenth pick on XXL's
"2017 Freshman Class" after being voted in. In his XXL freestyle
(which is regularly done by freshmen where a rapper will rhyme a cappella), it
was speculated that he verbally insulted a fellow American rapper J. Cole, though
later Cole endorsed the rappers music, calling him "talented."
On May 16, 2017, Onfroy released his
major-label debut commercial project, called Revenge. The mixtape consists of
eight previously released songs. The collaborative mixtape, Members Only, Vol.
3, with Members Only, was released on June 26, 2017.
Onfroy announced that he will be taking a small
break from social media on July 20, 2017 until he came back two weeks later to
announce the release date for his upcoming debut album, called 17. Rapper DRAM
brought Onfroy out at a concert in the Staples Centre during Kendrick Lamar's
DAMN.Tour, being the first time that Onfroy performed at the arena and the
first time he was brought out as an opening act by a mainstream artist. This
was following Lamar's comments about rappers using ghostwriters for song
lyrics[60] which may have been directed at Drake, whom Onfroy was in a rap feud
with earlier that year.
On August 25, 2017, he released his major-label
debut album, 17. The album debuted at No. 2 on the US Billboard 200, selling
86,000 album-equivalent units first week. The album received a positive
response from critics, some of which lauded the album for its personal
narratives and diverse musical style. On September 3, 2017, Onfroy announced
that Bad Vibes Forever, his second album, is still in production. 17 gave
Onfroy's seven songs — "Jocelyn Flores", "Revenge",
"Fuck Love", "Everybody Dies in Their Nightmares",
"Depression & Obsession", "Save Me" and "Carry
On" — that debuted in the Billboard Hot 100 at number 31, 77, 41, 54, 91,
94 and 95, respectively with "Jocelyn Flores" becoming XXXTentacion's
highest charting song since "Look At Me" that peaked it at 34. Onfroy
then received his ninth song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, after featured
on Kodak Black's song, "Roll in Peace" taken from Project Baby 2. The
song debuted at 52, and peaked at 31.
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