XXXTentacion was imprisoned for violating house arrest for nearly six months in 2016 and 2017, just as the success of his single “Look at Me!” was turning him into a national figure. His phone calls to friends and family during that time were recorded, as is standard in Florida where he was jailed and most other prison systems, and now, Pitchfork has obtained recordings of many of those calls. In the transcript excerpts published on the site, the late rapper discusses “[bashing] the face” of his ex-girlfriend and demands that his friends beat up a teenager who he believed was tampering with his cellphone.
XXXTentacion’s imprisonment came shortly after his arrest on multiple domestic abuse charges including aggravated battery of a pregnant woman, for allegedly beating and otherwise assaulting his ex-girlfriend. The rapper was awaiting trial on these charges when he was murdered while leaving a motorcycle dealership in June 2018. Prosecutors entered more than 200 calls from his prison stint into evidence for that case, according to Pitchfork, and Pitchfork obtained 59 of them, more than 16 hours of audio. In each of the calls, an automated voice informs the participants that they are being recorded.
In one of the calls, XXXTentacion told a woman, “I already got what I wanted, I already bashed her face—her face on the internet, bruh, I done made her look bad on the internet, bruh,” apparently referring to his ex-girlfriend. When the conversation ended, he said “Somebody need to beat [her] up, and, “I loved every second of that because you could hear the fear.”
In another conversation, which was first reported by the Miami New Times, XXXTentacion told his friends to beat up a 16-year-old who he suspected was allowing people to use the rapper’s cell phone and repost songs to his massively popular SoundCloud account. “Beat that boy ass. I’ma call back. I want that man ass beat,” he told them.
The allegations against XXXTentacion did not seem to harm his popularity while he was alive, and nor have they in death. A posthumous collaboration between him and Lil Pump, Swae Lee, and Maluma was recently released, as was a posthumous duet with the late Lil Peep.
Read Pitchfork’s full report of the calls, which includes many other transcript excerpts, here.
