XXXTentacion is shot and killed outside a Deerfield Beach motorsports dealership
Jahseh Onfroy is shot in his BMW i8 leaving Riva Motorsports in Deerfield Beach, Florida, during what investigators determine is a botched robbery. He is pronounced dead at the hospital at 5:30 PM. He was 20. Four men — Michael Boatwright, Trayvon Newsome, Dedrick Williams, and Robert Allen — are arrested. In 2023, Boatwright, Newsome, and Williams are convicted of first-degree murder; Allen takes a plea.
Why it matters
XXXTentacion's killing is the SoundCloud rap generation's first marquee death and exposes the dense tangle of mental health, allegations of partner violence (XXX faced felony domestic battery charges at the time of his death), and audience-parasocial relationships that the platform-driven late-2010s star economy had produced. His posthumous *Skins* enters the Billboard 200 at #1 in December 2018; *Look at Me!* re-enters the Hot 100 the week of his death. The killing is the proximate cause of the broader 2018-2022 reckoning about fan-cult-and-violence dynamics in streaming-era rap.
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