XXXTentacion

From the moment Hayley Williams founded Paramore with three Christian boys in Nashville, she was consumed by Biblical levels of conflict. Williams signed as a solo artist with Atlantic on the heels of Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated.” Her male bandmates performed and recorded without a contract. To counteract the narrative that a major label had engineered Williams, Atlantic released Paramore’s 2005 debut album, All We Know Is Falling, through the “sub-label” Fueled by Ramen. Critics caught onto the ruse, with Gigwise writing, “The band are an A&R man’s fantasy.” But Williams connected with angsty teens partially because the critics seemed to be bullying her. The bullying continued when Paramore changed their lineup and released the 2007 sophomore album Riot!

In June, a 20-year-old man called Jahseh Onfroy was murdered after leaving a motorcycle dealership in Deerfield Beach, Florida. Onfroy was a rapper, who recorded under the name XXXTentacion, and he had become extraordinarily successful — his two albums had reached No. 2 and No. 1 in the US, despite moderate sales, because of the amount of online plays they had received. The day after he died, my social-media timelines were full of music writers discussing his death, and the tenor — from those with kids, at least — was clear. Post after post noted that XXXTentacion was a nasty piece of work, and few should mourn him, yet the writer’s 13- or 14- or 15-year-old was devastated by his death. XXXTentacion was, it is true, a nasty piece of work.