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Teenage rap sensation XXXTentacion brutally murdered

US rapper, XXXTentacion, has been shot dead. He was born Jahseh Dwayne Onfroy. The 20-year-old rapper was gunned down outside a motorcycle dealership

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US rapper, XXXTentacion, has been shot dead. He was born Jahseh Dwayne Onfroy. The 20-year-old rapper was gunned down outside a motorcycle dealership.

XXXTentacion first began making music as a teenager, uploading his first track to SoundCloud in 2014, titled “Vice City.” He continued releasing music independently and collaborating with fellow rapper Ski Mask the Slump God.

On December 30, 2015, XXXTentacion released “Look at Me!,” which would eventually become his breakout hit—but not before the rapper was arrested in October 2016 on charges of false imprisonment, witness tampering and aggravated battery of a pregnant victim.

As XXXTentacion spent time behind bars, his popularity surged. On February 14, 2017, “Look at Me!” entered the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 95; the following week, XXX rereleased the song through Empire Distribution. The track would ultimately peak at No. 34 on the Hot 100 and help usher “SoundCloud rap”—a hyper-distorted, lo-fi subgenre—into the mainstream.

In March 2017, XXX was released from jail on probation. That May, he released his debut mixtape, Revenge, via Empire. Despite receiving little promotion, the collection still peaked at No. 44 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. The rapper appeared on XXL’s 2017 Freshman Class cover the following month, winning the fan-voted “10th Spot” by a landslide. It foreshadowed the massive commercial success he would soon experience.

On August 25, 2017, XXXTentacion released his debut studio album, 17. The album was an immediate hit, debuting and peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and earning praise from Kendrick Lamar. The following month, Pitchfork shared graphic excerpts of XXXTentacion’s ex-girlfriend’s testimony. She alleged multiple incidents of violence, including one where the rapper “head-butted her, punched her, stomped on her, and put her in the bathtub, where he continued hitting and kicking her.” His October 5 domestic abuse trial was postponed until December 11.

In December, XXXTentacion was jailed ahead of his trial; he was subsequently released and put on house arrest with permission from the judge to visit a local studio to fulfill his contractual obligations. The rapper kept a relatively low profile at the beginning of 2018, releasing his sophomore album, on March 16 through his own label, Bad Vibes Forever.

Last month, Spotify announced it would remove XXXTentacion’s music from its curated playlists as part of its new hate content and hateful conduct policy. The policy faced criticism from fans and other artists, who accused it of being too vague and selective. Spotify subsequently dropped the policy, and fans continued to stream XXXTentacion like crazy. His song “Jocelyn Flores” boasts more than 367 million Spotify streams, and “Sad!” has more than 270 million.

Over the course of his brief career, XXXTentacion continually defied music media’s traditional gatekeepers and attracted hordes of fans despite—or perhaps because of—the controversy surrounding him. In December, he said he planned to release three albums in 2018, titled, Skins and Bad Vibes Forever.

It is not yet known if the latter two albums will see a posthumous release.

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Culture

Collabo with Burna Boy enabled me buy house for my mum— Mozambican DJ Tarico

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Mozambican disc jockey and sound-producer, DJ Tarico, has credited Nigeria’s Afrobeats sensation, Burna Boy, with his sudden wealth which enabled him buy a house for his mother.

DJ Tarico attributed a collaboration with the Grammy Awards winning “African Giant” as the turning point in his story and said he would forever be grateful to the Nigerian star.

Speaking with the BBC African Voice on Saturday, DH Tarico said when he came up
with a particularly energetic beat one day, he couldn’t have predicted how it would change his life and that of his two friends.

He said one of his friends, Nelson Tivane, a songwriter and vocalist, came up with the lyric “Yaba Buluku” which was “inspired by the sound of coins jangling in a pocket”, while the other friend, Preck, “belted out that lyric with his gravelly, powerful voice,” with the song becoming an instant hit in their country.

“After we concluded the song, we went to a rural zone and we put a car with a big sound there, and we connected the song on the car and we saw many people dancing and ask ‘who is the owner of this song?’ Then we knew this song was going to be big!” Tarico recalls.

He said he was surprised that
none other than Burna Boy, realised the strength of “Yaba Buluku” and jumped on the remix, a move which had a massive impact on Tarico, Tivane and Preck.

“We were travelling all over Africa. Too many big artists were asking us for features. People started to know our face outside of Mozambique. We became internationals.

“And money! I bought a car, land and a house for my mother.”

The trio who now call themselves “Yaba Buluku Boyz”, have dropped their debut album, “Donsa”, on Friday, and are hoping to ride on the success of the collaboration to reach greatet heights in Africa and globally.

“Donsa”, according to DJ Tarico, “is high-energy, danceable amapiano, and features big African names including Ghana’s dancehall King Shatta Wale, Timaya from Nigeria and Harmonize from Tanzania,” he said.

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Culture

African men run away from single mothers— Joselyn Dumas

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Veteran Ghanaian actress and media personality, Joselyn Dumas, has lamented the fact that most African men shy away from getting married to single mothers due to the added responsibilities they will be saddled with.

The actress who made the assertion in her recent podcast, “Keeping it Real with Joselyn Dumas, The Perfect Picture”, opened up on the challenges of many single mothers who are struggling to find a partner because of societal biases.

In the podcast, Dumas who shared a personal story of a male friend whom she said refused to settle down with a lady because she had a child.

According to her, the friend named Anthony, firmly stated that it wasn’t his thing to be with a ‘born one’ or ‘born two’.

“He said B1, B2, I’m not in and I said to myself, ‘this is the reason why a lot of single mothers are single with their children.

“Now his reason was, why am I going to raise somebody’s child? That’s not my bloodline. He doesn’t have my DNA in him. Why am I now going to help someone’s bloodline grow? What about mine?” she said.

Dumas who is a single mother, noted that Anthony’s mindset is a “reflection of the views of a larger majority of people who don’t want to have meaningful relationship with single mothers.”

She also criticised what she termed as the double standard in society’s views on raising non-biological children, arguing that it should not be seen differently from adoption.

“I have a child but these men won’t even ask you, they don’t even care why you have a child. You’ve had seven miscarriages when you got married. You meet a guy, you were dating and you got pregnant, are you going to abort the baby because you aren’t married?

“He doesn’t want the child, are you going to throw the child away? No! You can raise the child. It takes a village to raise the child, so even if you don’t have a job, you will get support. This is part of the sacrifice you have to make regardless of what has happened,” she said.

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