XXXTentacion Dominates Spotify, Global Charts As Murder Suspect Arrested
[UPDATED] 20-year-old rapper XXXTentacion, who was shot and killed Monday in an apparent armed robbery, just broke Taylor Swift’s one-day global streaming record on Spotify.
Streams for XXXTentacion’s “Sad!” a meditation on his struggle with abandonment and depression, topped more than 10.4 million streams in 24 hours, according to data compiled by spotifycharts.com. That puts him ahead of Swift’s streaming record of 10.1 million streams for her 2017 hit “Look What You Made Me Do’”
And it wasn’t just “Sad!” — the seven of the top ten streamed songs in the past 24 hours were XXXTentacion tracks. In the 24 hours after his death (Calculated for June 19th), “Jocelyn Flores” was played 7.9 million times, “Moonlight” picked up 6.9 million spins and “changes” generated 6.1 million listens.
His albums sales enjoyed a posthumous bump as well, with Nielsen Music reporting that he went went from 2,000 copies sold on June 17th to 33,000 just one day later.
Spotify generated controversy earlier this year when they removed XXXTentacion from their playlists, both automatically generated and curated as part of a new policy on hate content. XXXTentacion was facing multiple criminal charges in Florida, including allegations that he physically assaulted his pregnant girlfriend.
However, the playlist ban didn’t’ last long and after an outcry from the public and some industry insiders, the streaming service withdrew part of the policy, stating that the rollout had been “flawed.”
