#xxxtentacion #hiphop
At their best, posthumous albums can be a tasteful last hurrah for an artist; being met with critic and fan acclaim alike.
At their worst, you get this.
That’s the opening line of todays video, which sums up XXXTENTACION’s Bad Vibes Forever pretty well.
Following the recent release of his ItWasntEnough EP on all platforms, featuring songs such as ‘Snow’ (ft Killstation) and ‘I spoke to the devil in Miami’, I took the opportunity to look back on X’s second posthumous album which was put out in 2019.
XXXTENTACION, real name Jahseh Onfroy, first saw popularity on Soundcloud in the early 2010s; becoming one of the first up and coming artists to don the moniker ‘Soundcloud Rapper’.
Songs like ‘look at me’, ‘Jocelyn Flores’, xxxtentacion sad, ‘carry on’, ‘Moonlight’ and ‘save me’ propelled XXXTENTACION into the mainstream, with his albums ‘17’ and ‘?’ finding major success.
However, after his unfortunate passing, X’s output, or rather X’s label’s output, has been somewhat subpar.
I think it’s down to two things: having a lack of content to work with, and greed on the label’s part.
In the video, I compare X’s Bad Vibes Forwver to other, more successful, posthumous hip-hop albums that have been released in recent years such as Juice WRLD’s ‘Legends Never Die’ and Pop Smoke’s ‘Shoot for the stars aim for the moon’.
I then give a track by track run through of BVF, with the aim to pin point where things went wrong (it turns out, almost immediately).
Song highlights are few and far between, but include ‘Daemons’, ‘Attention’ and the title track. Though they don’t exactly blow you away.
In terms of, well, low-lights, pick pretty much any other song on the album. The worst of the bunch are easily ‘Change/Glass Shards’ and ‘the only time I feel alive’.
Despite featuring mega stars and industry staples such as Lil Wayne, Rick Ross and Joey Badass, this project also features failed artists like Joyner Lucas and Noah Cyrus so ultimately falls flat on its face.
This, as well as the album’s nature as an obvious cash grab from XXXTENTACION’s label(s) EMPIRE, Capitol Music Group; is included in the final section of my video where I pick apart this album even more.
Whilst we’re on the subject of features, Bad Vibes Forever noticeably doesn’t include X’s friend and frequent collaborator Ski Mask the Slump God. And, judging by the album itself, you can see why Ski Mask wouldn’t want to be involved.
This video isn’t all doom and gloom though, as I poke fun at the songs on this album in a comedic way; making for an enjoyable time.
I hope you enjoy this video, it will be the first of many.