A grimace came across the face of Caroline Dike when she heard the name.
The 20-year-old UF political science major isn’t going to remember XXXTentacion in a positive light. The 20-year-old rapper, legally named Jahseh Dwayne Onfroy, was shot and killed in Deerfield Beach, Florida, on Monday behind the wheel of his BMW i8 by unknown gunmen.
Onfroy has been a lightning rod of controversy since his music career took off in 2014, and his recent death resurfaced the issue of how the public should remember controversial celebrities. This is a problem the Gainesville student population is struggling with in particular.
It’s difficult figuring out how to remember fallen celebrities like Onfroy, who had a track record of violence and mental health problems which he frequently referenced in his music. At the time his death, he was still facing domestic abuse charges filed by his pregnant girlfriend, Geneva Ayala, according to a Miami New Times article.
“I’m not necessarily saying his death was a good thing,” Dike said. “But I don’t think we should glorify people that are homophobic and abusing their girlfriends.”
Despite his troublesome legal record, hundreds flocked to Northwest 37th Street on Tuesday, according to a report by the Sun-Sentinel, the same place the rapper was shot.
Fans Randy Senti, 18, and Stevens Louima, 18, both UF students from Miami-Dade county, cited charitable contributions that Onfroy has made toward the greater Miami community as reasons to remember the rap star positively.
“Even though he did all that stuff, I was able to look past that because he wanted to change as a person,” Louima said. “His actions were reflecting the change he wanted.”
There are also rap fans that support Onfroy’s music but not his personal lifestyle, a contradictory stance since much of the rapper’s music directly reflected his life of violence and aggression. UF student Andrew Merritt, 22, and his girlfriend Alejandra Zarate, 20, of Santa Fe College said they fall into this fence-sitting category.
“I liked his music because I saw him randomly punch fans in the face and stuff at concerts,” Merritt said.
With all of the different takes on Onfroy’s legacy, his public image seems to be still under construction like a puzzle missing half of its pieces. Some of these spaces will be filled in by the determinations made in the undecided domestic abuse case and murder that is currently under investigation.
Yet, if anyone can provide the finer details on how Onfroy should be remembered, it’s his loved ones. With the death so recent and funeral preparations ahead, it’ll take some time for the family, especially for Ayala, to speak about Onfroy in a detailed manner and in a public setting.
Construct your opinion of the rapper however you want, but to know the person XXXTentacion really was, we’ll need to find out first-hand from Ayala and the rapper’s loved ones.
