South Florida rapper XXXTENTACION might be the first new star of 2017—his breakout
hit “Look At Me!” has been streamed over 20 million times.
While his music is blowing up, the 19-year-old artist has been locked
up in Broward County Jail, awaiting trial for felony charges that include home invasion,
robbery, aggravated battery, and false imprisonment.
A$AP Rocky recently voiced his support for X on Instagram.
This past weekend, at a concert in Amsterdam, Drake previewed a new song,
and X’s fans accused him of ripping off “Look At Me!”:
While fans were originally hoping to see X released in January, his trial was mysteriously
pushed to April.
We recently called up X in jail to talk about his uncertain future
and his latest wave of buzz.
Yes?
Hey what's up X it's Cal from Genius.
So can you tell us a little about who X is?
and how do you see your music fitting into the current music scene?
I like to consider myself an artist.
I do alternative rock, melancholy indie, all the way down to an old school lyrical boom
bap rap, like Kendrick Lamar or Joey Badass, all the way down to a New Age rap like Young
Thug, Lil Uzi, and all of them boys.
I try and keep it as multi genre as possible or like switch up my style as much as possible.
X can you talk a little about what it's like having your music blow up right now
when you can't experience it firsthand?
As far as knowing how much my name is buzzing, I haven’t exactly gotten a feeling as to
how really big I am”
so it’s still kind
of unreal.
Once I get out
i feel like that’s when it’s gonna get hectic and crazy.
Is there anyone you want to work with when you get out?
As of right now I want to work with the Fray, Kings of Leon, and probably Lorde.
I do multi-genre, i don’t just rap
I don’t do anything just to do it.
Everything that i’ve created has a subliminal concept.
I’m seeing how I can be the greatest artist there is. My goal in the very end, to
surpass every artist there every was and to conceptually fuck all of them.
Do you have any plans to sign to a label or are you trying to stay independent?
I have no intentions of signing as an artist over to a label, but have plans to give them
the rights to mixtapes and albums.
I’ll still be the same artist I was before—no one can get in my head and no one can change
me.
I really wanna fuck the industry inside out and put a hole in it
for underground artists to make their way onto the radio and get more artistic things
played rather than the bullshit they have now.
Any updates about your case that you could share with us?
Due to the lack of evidence in both cases, I know I will be out—that is not the problem.
My main thing is trying to get the team of attorneys on my case to push the issue, like,
“Yo this guy has something going on with his life, he can’t be in here wasting time.”
If they proceed with the case, I’m going to sue the state and the state
attorney’s office.
What’s next for X?
Now you’re gonna see who’s the greatest
artist of the century and of this generation. And I'm gonna make sure I claim that.
I’m not talking about best artist in my city, or in my country—i’’m going for
best artist in the world, that's what I'm goin for.
I'm goin for best artist, best conceptual artist in the world.
So I'm comin for everybodys shit.
Assuming X is released in April,
He says he has a bunch of new projects on the way.
full-length album called 17
a mixtape called "I Love Jesus, the mixtape a mixtape."
a horror movie sampling project called Horror Junkie,
and a new mixtape with his collective called Members Only Volume 3.