Interest has surged in XXXTentacion’s music since the controversial rapper and singer was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting last week. His single “Sad!” jumped from No. 52 to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts for the week dated June 30.
The achievement puts XXXTentacion in good company. The last time a performer posthumously charted a No. 1 single was The Notorious B.I.G. with his 1997 song “Mo Money Mo Problems.”
“Sad!” appeared on X’s sophomore album “?,” and according to Nielsen Music (via Billboard), the track jumped 48.9 million streams in the week ending on June 21.
In addition, nine of his songs in all made their way onto the Billboard Hot 100 this week, with one track, “Hope,” making its debut on the Hot 100 chart.
According to Billboard, that makes him only the 12th solo rapper to have at least nine entries on the Billboard Hot 100 at once. He joins a list that includes Cardi B, Drake, Future, J. Cole, JAY-Z, Kendrick Lamar, Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Wayne, Logic, Post Malone and Kanye West.
X’s “Sad!” earlier broke a record held by Taylor Swift for one-day Spotify streams. The streaming service had previously pulled his music from discoverable playlists as part of a policy against hateful conduct.
XXXTentacion, whose real name was Jahseh Dwayne Onfroy, was shot in a drive-by shooting on June 18 in South Florida at just 20 years old. He came to fame online by originally posting music to a SoundCloud account and via a YouTube channel. But the rapper became more well known for his litany of legal problems, including in 2014 being sent to a youth detention center for a year on gun possession charges, followed by being arrested again and charged with robbery and assault with a deadly weapon in 2016.