Background and career
Jahseh Dwayne Ricardo Onfroy (January 23, 1998 – June 18, 2018), professionally known as XXXTentacion, was an American rapper, singer-songwriter, and record producer. Though a controversial figure due to his widely publicized legal troubles, XXXTentacion gained a cult following among his young fan base during his short career with his depression and alienation-themed music. He was considered to be a leading figure in the establishment of the emo rap and SoundCloud rap genres, which garnered mainstream attention during the mid-to-late 2010s. Born in Plantation, Florida, Onfroy started his music career on SoundCloud in 2013, employing styles and techniques that were considered unconventional in rap music such as distortion and heavy guitar-backed instrumentals, drawing inspiration from third-wave emo and grunge. Onfroy gained mainstream attention with his 2016 single "Look at Me!". He went on to release two albums in his early mainstream career – 17 (2017) and ? (2018) – that have since been certified multi platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
The latter's lead single, "Sad!", posthumously reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and received a diamond certification by the RIAA in August 2021. On June 18, 2018, Onfroy, age 20, was murdered when he was shot near a motorcycle dealership in Deerfield Beach, Florida. In 2023, his murder suspects were found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Onfroy has sold 110 million records in the US according to the RIAA, and has BPI-certified sales of over 13 million units in the UK, bringing his total to 123 million certified units sold in the two countries. Since his death, he has won an American Music Award and a BET Hip Hop Award and received 11 Billboard Music Award nominations. Two posthumous albums were released, Skins (2018) and Bad Vibes Forever (2019); the former became his second number-one album on the Billboard 200, while the latter entered the top five.
Early life and education Jahseh Dwayne Ricardo Onfroy was born on January 23, 1998, in Plantation, Florida, to Jamaican parents, Dwayne Ricardo Onfroy and Cleopatra Eretha Dreena Bernard. His father named him after the Bob Marley song "So Jah Seh", which interpolates Ezekiel 34. Both his father and grandfather were Rastafarians. Onfroy was born with a ventricular septal defect, commonly known as a "hole in the heart". Due to his condition, he never grew taller than 5 feet 6 inches. Onfroy stated he also had Syrian, Indian, and possibly Italian ancestry in an interview on The Beat in 2017. Due to his mother's personal problems, Onfroy was mainly raised by his grandmother Collette Jones in Pompano Beach, Florida, and Lauderhill, Florida. When he was six years old, he allegedly tried to stab a man attempting to attack his mother and was eventually put into a youth program before living with his grandmother. A source close to the Onfroy family denied that the alleged stabbing incident occurred, and it could not be corroborated by police reports, since Onfroy was a minor.
Despite this, trauma and domestic violence experts have stated that it is unlikely that the story was fabricated. When Onfroy was a child, he discovered his uncle's deceased body after the man committed suicide by hanging. He referenced his trauma from the incident in multiple songs. In 2017, he alluded that he had been sexually abused by an unnamed adult when he was a child. Other traumatic events that Onfroy witnessed as a child included someone being physically tortured and someone being raped. According to his mother, he was routinely beaten by his father as a child; she claimed that Onfroy's father tried to hit her in front of Onfroy on several occasions. In early 2008, when Onfroy was ten, his father was jailed for nine years in Arizona on RICO charges after the Drug Enforcement Administration organized a sting operation. His father was deported to Jamaica in late 2016.
How XXXTentacion makes money
On June 18, 2018, Onfroy, age 20, was murdered when he was shot near a motorcycle dealership in Deerfield Beach, Florida.
