XXXTentacion becomes first artist to posthumously top Billboard Hot 100 after Notorious B.I.G
XXXTentacion's single 'Sad!' topped the Billboard Hot 100, making a huge leap from No. 52 to No. 1, for its first week. The song reached the summit after the rapper's death on June 18 at the age of 20. He was shot in Deerfield Beach, Florida. He is probably the first artist to have topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart, posthumously, ever since 'The Notorious B.I.G' whose song, 'Mo Money Mo Problems' reached the top in 1997.
NME reported that the rapper's music saw a massive 1,603% rise in sale following his death on June 18. The article mentioned the Nielsen Music report which states that his album and digital songs sale rose from 2,000 sold on June 17 to 33,000 copies sold on June 18. His song 'Sad!' has sold over 6,000 copies, marking a 1,143% rise as compared to its earlier sale which was below 1,000 copies. It reports that Spotify was criticised on June 19 for continuing streaming his songs, in spite of its announcement of not promoting artists who were accused of sexual assaults. XXXTentacion was reportedly in the middle of several controversies in his brief, yet successful, career.
The rapper had spent about nine months in a juvenile-detention center during 2013-2014, for charges on gun possession. Vulture provides a timeline of several incidents where the rapper had inflicted domestic violence upon his former girlfriend. The report mentions that according to her, he threatened to penetrate her vagina with a "barbecue cleaner". He was later arrested in 2015 on charges of robbery and sexual assaults. After he agreed to be under house arrest, he was released from being detained at Broward Regional Detention Center in Fort Lauderdale. He allegedly assaulted his former girlfriend after she confessed to having slept with another man. The rapper was once again arrested in Miami-Dade County and was charged with aggravated battery of a pregnant woman, domestic battery by strangulation, false imprisonment, and witness tampering.
In an article analyzing being a fan in a more morally sound world, Pitchfork has termed the rapper as a "test case for the ethical future of the genre." It noted that the rapper's popularity lied in the fact that his fans truly appreciated his music, saying that "his songs thrive on their emotional overlap with his turbulent life." The article quoted the rapper to have said at the start of his debut record, "By listening to this album, you are, and I cannot stress this enough, literally entering my mind."
The 20-year-old rapper was shot dead in an apparent robbery while he was leaving a motorsports store sometime after 4 pm. The authorities arrested Dedrick Williams of Pompano Beach on Wednesday evening, charging him with first-degree murder. According to CNN Entertainment, he was also charged with a probation violation and operating a vehicle without a driver's license.
The report further explained that though Williams' inmate record describes the charge as "murder dangerous depraved (without) premeditation", the arrest warrant accuses him of killing the rapper "from a premeditated design". The report also states that fans will be attending a memorial to bid farewell to the rapper, at BB&T Center, on Wednesday.
