XXXTENTACION’s music has kept his legacy intact even years after he passed away, with his sophomore LP having just broken a new streaming record.
On Monday (October 22), the late rapper’s ? surpassed 10 billion streams on Spotify, making it the first rap record to ascend to such heights.
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Released in March 2018, just three months before XXXTENTACION (real name Jahseh Onfroy) was tragically shot and killed at the age of 20, the 18-track project would become the final album greenlit by him.
? was released to critical acclaim, with features from Joey Bada$$, Travis Barker and PnB Rock, among others. Upon its release, the album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
This past summer, ? topped Spotify’s list of most-streamed rap albums of all time. The platform revealed its Top 50 list in early July, encompassing all data since its inception.
Aside from X sitting in the No. 1 spot, the Top 5 was rounded out by Drake’s Scorpion and Views at No. 2 and 3, respectively, the late Juice WRLD’s Goodbye & Good Riddance at No. 4 and Travis Scott’s Astroworld at No. 5.
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? topping the list may come as a surprise to some, but it makes sense upon looking at the data. Four songs on the album have racked up more than a billion streams each: “hope,” “changes” and the mega-hit, “moonlight,” while the album’s biggest hit, “SAD!,” now has over two billion streams. The latter is currently the 50th most-streamed song on the entire platform.
The news arrived just weeks after the fifth anniversary of XXXTENTACION’s passing. To honor his legacy, his estate shared a new song titled “I’m Not Human.” The posthumous track was originally teased for a January release to commemorate the Florida star’s 25th birthday but was then held till his death anniversary.
The minimalist acoustic cut features vocals by Lil Uzi Vert and production credits by longtime collaborator John Cunningham, with the latter sharing a note along with the song’s release.
“When I was living with Jah in Florida in 2018 we would spend most days in his room, me playing guitar and him singing,” Cunningham wrote. “The day he first sang ‘I’m not human’ as I was playing that guitar part we both looked at each other and cracked a smile, knowing it was special. We listened back to the voice memo he recorded and talked about finishing it.”
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He continued: “the few times that we tried recording vocals in the studio the feeling was never the same and he always preferred the original voice memo which is why we chose to keep it in the official version of the song.”
