WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.240 I was looking at the RIAA certification numbers 00:00:03.240 --> 00:00:05.540 this morning, and it just doesn't compute. It 00:00:05.540 --> 00:00:08.500 really defies the laws of public relations, it 00:00:08.500 --> 00:00:10.419 defies the logic of cancel culture, and honestly, 00:00:10.599 --> 00:00:12.779 it just defies the basic physics of the music 00:00:12.779 --> 00:00:14.859 industry. It really does. You have an artist 00:00:14.859 --> 00:00:18.219 who has been dead since 2018, an artist who didn't 00:00:18.219 --> 00:00:20.239 just have allegations, but had, I mean, we have 00:00:20.239 --> 00:00:22.519 audio recordings of him admitting to heinous 00:00:22.519 --> 00:00:27.000 violence, and yet, sad. is diamond. Diamond. 00:00:27.179 --> 00:00:29.800 Not platinum, diamond. That is a tier occupied 00:00:29.800 --> 00:00:34.700 by like... The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Drake. 00:00:35.380 --> 00:00:37.759 How? It is the ultimate paradox. And that's what 00:00:37.759 --> 00:00:40.200 we're looking at today. Joss Hay, Dwayne Ricardo, 00:00:40.340 --> 00:00:43.820 Enfroy, who the world knew as XXXTentacion or 00:00:43.820 --> 00:00:45.859 just X. Right. Usually, you know, when we do 00:00:45.859 --> 00:00:47.380 these deep dives, we're trying to shine a light 00:00:47.380 --> 00:00:48.799 on something that's maybe a bit obscure. But 00:00:48.799 --> 00:00:51.500 with X, the problem isn't obscurity at all. It's 00:00:51.500 --> 00:00:53.359 that everyone has a completely different version 00:00:53.359 --> 00:00:55.560 of him that they cling to. Oh, absolutely. To 00:00:55.560 --> 00:00:58.280 some, he was a genius. A prophet of sorrow. To 00:00:58.280 --> 00:01:00.500 the kids in the mosh pits, he was the only guy 00:01:00.500 --> 00:01:03.560 on the planet who understood their depression, 00:01:03.780 --> 00:01:06.480 their alienation. And to the critics or, you 00:01:06.480 --> 00:01:08.480 know, to the law. To the critics and, frankly, 00:01:08.540 --> 00:01:11.739 to the legal system, he was a monster. A symbol 00:01:11.739 --> 00:01:15.299 of everything wrong with toxic masculinity. A 00:01:15.299 --> 00:01:18.680 demented abuser who, let's not forget, was charged 00:01:18.680 --> 00:01:20.859 with beating a pregnant woman. That is exactly 00:01:20.859 --> 00:01:24.060 where I get stuck. Because usually... Society, 00:01:24.140 --> 00:01:26.219 you know, it picks a lane. We either cancel the 00:01:26.219 --> 00:01:28.579 monster or we find a way to exonerate the genius. 00:01:28.959 --> 00:01:31.459 With X, we did neither. No, we did both at the 00:01:31.459 --> 00:01:33.519 same time. We did both. And I mean, the collective 00:01:33.519 --> 00:01:35.939 culture here, we made him a global superstar 00:01:35.939 --> 00:01:38.540 while he was awaiting trial for witness tampering 00:01:38.540 --> 00:01:40.959 and aggravated battery. It makes no sense. And 00:01:40.959 --> 00:01:43.519 that's our mission for this deep dive. We aren't 00:01:43.519 --> 00:01:45.540 here to retry the case, though we have the court 00:01:45.540 --> 00:01:48.780 documents and they are grim. We aren't here to 00:01:48.780 --> 00:01:51.530 just review the albums. So what's the goal? We 00:01:51.530 --> 00:01:53.870 need to figure out how this specific kid from 00:01:53.870 --> 00:01:56.129 a juvenile detention center in Lauderhill, Florida, 00:01:56.290 --> 00:01:58.849 managed to hack the cultural operating system. 00:01:59.090 --> 00:02:01.969 We need to look at the rise of SoundCloud rap, 00:02:02.150 --> 00:02:04.349 frankly, the weaponization of mental health, 00:02:04.409 --> 00:02:07.269 and that very uncomfortable question. Can you 00:02:07.269 --> 00:02:09.409 separate the art from the artist when the art 00:02:09.409 --> 00:02:11.759 is the violence? Let's get into the sources, 00:02:11.819 --> 00:02:13.840 because the biography here isn't just, you know, 00:02:13.860 --> 00:02:16.560 he was born, he rapped, he died. It reads like 00:02:16.560 --> 00:02:19.080 a Greek tragedy written by a Florida court reporter. 00:02:19.219 --> 00:02:21.860 It really does. And to understand the end, the 00:02:21.860 --> 00:02:24.979 BMW I -8, the robbers, the assassination, you 00:02:24.979 --> 00:02:26.340 have to go all the way back to the beginning, 00:02:26.520 --> 00:02:30.509 January 23, 1998, Plantation, Florida. Which 00:02:30.509 --> 00:02:33.509 sounds so idyllic, Plantation, Florida. But the 00:02:33.509 --> 00:02:36.789 reality for Jossie was anything but. The sources 00:02:36.789 --> 00:02:39.650 we have just paint this picture of immediate 00:02:39.650 --> 00:02:42.909 chaotic instability. Instability is putting it 00:02:42.909 --> 00:02:45.050 very mildly. I mean, his mother, Cleopatra Bernard, 00:02:45.349 --> 00:02:47.810 was very young. She had significant personal 00:02:47.810 --> 00:02:50.969 struggles, financial, emotional. And because 00:02:50.969 --> 00:02:53.490 of that, Jossie was essentially passed around. 00:02:53.750 --> 00:02:55.629 Not with her full time? Not at all. He lived 00:02:55.629 --> 00:02:57.330 primarily with his grandmother, Colette Jones, 00:02:57.650 --> 00:02:59.870 in Pompano Beach in Lauderhill. And this isn't 00:02:59.870 --> 00:03:01.969 just, you know, mom's busy working two jobs. 00:03:02.150 --> 00:03:04.129 This is a fundamental lack of attachment from 00:03:04.129 --> 00:03:06.569 day one. I remember reading an interview, I think 00:03:06.569 --> 00:03:08.849 it was from his time in juvie, where he was asked 00:03:08.849 --> 00:03:11.490 about his dad and his response was just scathing. 00:03:11.490 --> 00:03:13.849 He just said, what's a father? Right. And his 00:03:13.849 --> 00:03:16.530 father was incarcerated on RICO charges when 00:03:16.530 --> 00:03:19.150 Josset was 10 years old. So he's serving a nine 00:03:19.150 --> 00:03:21.189 year sentence during the most formative years 00:03:21.189 --> 00:03:25.349 of his son's life. That absence. It just leaves 00:03:25.349 --> 00:03:27.610 a vacuum. But it wasn't just the absence of a 00:03:27.610 --> 00:03:29.389 role model. It was the active presence of trauma. 00:03:29.550 --> 00:03:32.610 The things this kid saw. The sources are heavy. 00:03:32.729 --> 00:03:35.250 He witnessed physical torture in his neighborhood. 00:03:35.469 --> 00:03:37.770 He told stories about seeing people get raped. 00:03:37.909 --> 00:03:40.330 And then there's the story about his uncle. The 00:03:40.330 --> 00:03:42.810 suicide. Jase was the one who found his uncle's 00:03:42.810 --> 00:03:46.409 body. Hanging. And that image, the hanging body, 00:03:46.669 --> 00:03:49.590 it just haunts his lyrics later on. You hear 00:03:49.590 --> 00:03:51.729 it in his music. It's not a metaphor for him. 00:03:51.870 --> 00:03:54.919 It's a memory. There is one story from his childhood 00:03:54.919 --> 00:03:57.439 that gets cited in every single profile, every 00:03:57.439 --> 00:03:59.680 documentary. It's almost become folklore at this 00:03:59.680 --> 00:04:02.159 point, the stabbing story. This is the foundational 00:04:02.159 --> 00:04:05.300 myth of XXXtentation. It's his origin story. 00:04:05.819 --> 00:04:07.840 The story goes that when he was six years old, 00:04:07.939 --> 00:04:11.400 six age, a man was attacking his mother. And 00:04:11.400 --> 00:04:13.879 Josset allegedly grabbed a knife or a piece of 00:04:13.879 --> 00:04:15.659 glass, depends on who tells it. And he stabbed 00:04:15.659 --> 00:04:18.199 the guy. He tried to. He ran at the guy and tried 00:04:18.199 --> 00:04:20.459 to stab him to protect his mom. At six years 00:04:20.459 --> 00:04:22.920 old, I mean, at six, most kids are scared of 00:04:22.920 --> 00:04:25.720 the dark or, you know, worrying about losing 00:04:25.720 --> 00:04:28.399 a tooth. They are not intervening in violent 00:04:28.399 --> 00:04:31.620 domestic disputes with a weapon. Exactly. Now, 00:04:31.740 --> 00:04:34.019 we have to be really careful here. The police 00:04:34.019 --> 00:04:37.660 reports from that time don't explicitly corroborate 00:04:37.660 --> 00:04:40.639 a six -year -old stabbing someone. But trauma 00:04:40.639 --> 00:04:43.600 experts who have analyzed his life suggest that 00:04:43.600 --> 00:04:46.699 whether the details are 100 % factual or just 00:04:46.699 --> 00:04:49.800 exaggerated by memory, the emotional truth is 00:04:49.800 --> 00:04:51.839 what matters. What do you mean by that? He learned 00:04:51.839 --> 00:04:54.079 at kindergarten age that violence was a valid 00:04:54.079 --> 00:04:57.060 language, that it was a tool, not just for aggression, 00:04:57.240 --> 00:04:59.639 but for protection. And more importantly, it 00:04:59.639 --> 00:05:01.779 was a tool to protect his mother. That's key. 00:05:02.019 --> 00:05:04.199 Even though their relationship is so volatile, 00:05:04.459 --> 00:05:07.300 he saw himself as her protector. That set up 00:05:07.300 --> 00:05:09.459 a pattern that defined his entire life. I am 00:05:09.459 --> 00:05:11.709 the violent protector. But, you know, that kind 00:05:11.709 --> 00:05:14.230 of behavior, it doesn't really work in a classroom. 00:05:14.430 --> 00:05:16.670 Not at all. And the school records show that 00:05:16.670 --> 00:05:19.430 he was a misfit from day one. He was expelled 00:05:19.430 --> 00:05:21.649 from middle school for fighting. He was kicked 00:05:21.649 --> 00:05:24.050 out of the school choir, which, by the way, the 00:05:24.050 --> 00:05:26.490 idea of X in a choir robe is just hard to picture. 00:05:26.629 --> 00:05:29.870 His aunt forced him to join to channel his energy. 00:05:30.629 --> 00:05:33.629 It didn't last long. He attacked another student. 00:05:34.189 --> 00:05:36.750 And the reason he gave is so telling, he claimed 00:05:36.750 --> 00:05:39.870 the student just touched him. That seems to be 00:05:39.870 --> 00:05:42.230 a consistent trigger for him, the invasion of 00:05:42.230 --> 00:05:45.050 his personal space. It's a classic hypervigilant 00:05:45.050 --> 00:05:47.910 response. It comes from trauma. When you grow 00:05:47.910 --> 00:05:50.110 up in an environment where you witness constant 00:05:50.110 --> 00:05:52.670 violence, you develop a hair trigger response. 00:05:52.949 --> 00:05:55.589 You start to interpret completely neutral actions 00:05:55.589 --> 00:05:58.170 as threats. So someone just bumps into you by 00:05:58.170 --> 00:06:00.230 accident. But they aren't being clumsy. In your 00:06:00.230 --> 00:06:02.350 mind, they're attacking you. You have to react 00:06:02.350 --> 00:06:04.370 with overwhelming force. There's also the physical 00:06:04.370 --> 00:06:06.410 aspect we should mention. He wasn't a big guy. 00:06:06.490 --> 00:06:08.709 He wasn't physically imposing. Not at all. Five 00:06:08.709 --> 00:06:11.410 foot six. Yeah. And he had a ventricular septal 00:06:11.410 --> 00:06:14.149 defect, a literal hole in his heart from birth. 00:06:14.620 --> 00:06:17.160 So you have the Napoleon complex, this medical 00:06:17.160 --> 00:06:19.980 vulnerability, the massive childhood trauma, 00:06:20.120 --> 00:06:23.040 and the absentee parents. I mean, it's a cocktail 00:06:23.040 --> 00:06:26.439 for disaster. And that disaster manifests, as 00:06:26.439 --> 00:06:29.000 it so often does, in the juvenile justice system. 00:06:29.139 --> 00:06:32.939 Around 2013 or 2014, he lands in a youth detention 00:06:32.939 --> 00:06:36.060 center for gun possession. And this. Right here. 00:06:36.100 --> 00:06:39.000 This is the crucible. This is where Josse Onfroy 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:42.060 dies and XXXTentacion begins. Because of who 00:06:42.060 --> 00:06:44.259 he meets there. Because he meets Stokely Goldburn, 00:06:44.399 --> 00:06:47.160 better known to the world as Ski Mask the Slump 00:06:47.160 --> 00:06:49.519 God. It's wild to think about that. These two 00:06:49.519 --> 00:06:52.019 kids locked up in a Florida juvie, basically 00:06:52.019 --> 00:06:54.639 inventing a whole new subgenre of hip hop while 00:06:54.639 --> 00:06:56.899 they're doing time. They bonded over freestyling. 00:06:56.899 --> 00:06:58.779 It was their escape. But what's so fascinating 00:06:58.779 --> 00:07:00.579 in the detention records and in his own interviews 00:07:00.579 --> 00:07:03.220 about it is the deep contradiction in X's behavior 00:07:03.220 --> 00:07:05.879 even then. How so? On one hand, he positions 00:07:05.879 --> 00:07:08.480 himself as a protector. He tells this now famous 00:07:08.480 --> 00:07:10.860 story about defending a gay cellmate who was 00:07:10.860 --> 00:07:12.939 being bullied. Yeah. He frames himself as this 00:07:12.939 --> 00:07:15.399 righteous vigilante standing up against the bullies. 00:07:15.399 --> 00:07:18.129 But. There's always a but with him. There's always 00:07:18.129 --> 00:07:21.509 a but. He then admits to brutally attacking that 00:07:21.509 --> 00:07:24.290 same cellmate later, nearly beating him to death, 00:07:24.389 --> 00:07:26.350 because he thought the guy was staring at him 00:07:26.350 --> 00:07:28.310 while he was changing his clothes. There it is 00:07:28.310 --> 00:07:30.610 again. The hypervigilance. Don't look at me. 00:07:30.649 --> 00:07:33.750 Don't touch me. That hair trigger. It shows the 00:07:33.750 --> 00:07:36.990 absolute fracture in his identity. He wants to 00:07:36.990 --> 00:07:39.810 be the savior, the hero, but his impulse control 00:07:39.810 --> 00:07:43.420 is just non -existent. He later claimed in interviews, 00:07:43.740 --> 00:07:46.779 I'm not homophobic, I support gay marriage, but 00:07:46.779 --> 00:07:48.680 in that high -pressure, testosterone -filled 00:07:48.680 --> 00:07:51.379 environment, his immediate reaction to feeling 00:07:51.379 --> 00:07:54.579 vulnerable was extreme violence. You know, the 00:07:54.579 --> 00:07:56.480 most important thing to come out of that stint 00:07:56.480 --> 00:07:58.920 in juvie wasn't the fights, though. It was the 00:07:58.920 --> 00:08:01.540 plan. When they got out, they had a roadmap for 00:08:01.540 --> 00:08:03.579 their future. But the roadmap wasn't originally 00:08:03.579 --> 00:08:06.000 music. That's what people forget. The plan was 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:09.319 home invasions. Seriously? Yes. He and Ski Mask 00:08:09.319 --> 00:08:11.829 were going to get out and just rob houses. That 00:08:11.829 --> 00:08:14.209 was the career path they had laid out. Wow, that's 00:08:14.209 --> 00:08:16.529 grim. We're going to get out of jail so we can 00:08:16.529 --> 00:08:18.329 commit crimes that will put us right back in 00:08:18.329 --> 00:08:22.329 prison. It is. But Jasa pivots. A girlfriend 00:08:22.329 --> 00:08:24.769 at the time encourages him to focus on music. 00:08:25.189 --> 00:08:28.529 He buys a cheap blue snowball microphone. He 00:08:28.529 --> 00:08:30.490 decides, I'm going to take all this rage, all 00:08:30.490 --> 00:08:34.070 this chaos, and put it into audio. And in 2013, 00:08:34.289 --> 00:08:37.710 he uploads his first track, Vice City, to a platform 00:08:37.710 --> 00:08:40.120 that would change everything. SoundCloud. Okay, 00:08:40.220 --> 00:08:41.639 we have to stop right there. We need to talk 00:08:41.639 --> 00:08:43.500 about the sound. Because if you were listening 00:08:43.500 --> 00:08:46.320 to the radio in 2013, 2014, you had Drake, you 00:08:46.320 --> 00:08:48.960 had Katy Perry, you had the super polished, high 00:08:48.960 --> 00:08:51.740 -fidelity production. The industry standard was 00:08:51.740 --> 00:08:54.259 clean. Crystal clear. Then you put on an early 00:08:54.259 --> 00:08:57.500 XXXTentacion track, and it sounds like you're 00:08:57.500 --> 00:08:59.200 listening through broken speakers. That was the 00:08:59.200 --> 00:09:01.419 genius of it. We call it SoundCloud rap now, 00:09:01.539 --> 00:09:03.320 but at the time, the establishment just called 00:09:03.320 --> 00:09:06.220 it bad mixing. X realized something absolutely 00:09:06.220 --> 00:09:09.240 crucial, maybe by accident, maybe just by pure 00:09:09.240 --> 00:09:12.179 intuition. Distortion feels like emotion. Explain 00:09:12.179 --> 00:09:13.659 that a bit more. What do you mean distortion 00:09:13.659 --> 00:09:16.500 feels like emotion? When you clip the audio, 00:09:16.720 --> 00:09:19.679 when the bass is so loud that it physically distorts 00:09:19.679 --> 00:09:22.340 the waveform, it creates a visceral reaction 00:09:22.340 --> 00:09:25.000 in the listener. It sounds like the song is literally 00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:27.460 falling apart. It sounds like the equipment can't 00:09:27.460 --> 00:09:29.889 handle the anger. It sounds like a panic attack. 00:09:30.250 --> 00:09:33.090 It sounds like panic. It sounds like rage. He 00:09:33.090 --> 00:09:35.490 wasn't trying to emulate the clean million dollar 00:09:35.490 --> 00:09:38.129 studio sound. He was leaning into the limitations 00:09:38.129 --> 00:09:41.269 of his cheap gear and turning a bug into a feature. 00:09:41.409 --> 00:09:44.250 So the whole lo -fi aesthetic wasn't just, oh, 00:09:44.269 --> 00:09:47.029 I can't afford a proper studio. It was a deliberate 00:09:47.029 --> 00:09:50.809 choice. It was, this sounds more real. Precisely. 00:09:50.870 --> 00:09:53.470 It's the democratization of distortion. It's 00:09:53.470 --> 00:09:56.399 exactly what punk rock did in the 70s. The Sex 00:09:56.399 --> 00:09:58.139 Pistols didn't want to sound like Pink Floyd. 00:09:58.299 --> 00:10:00.019 X didn't want to sound like Drake. He wanted 00:10:00.019 --> 00:10:02.320 to sound like a riot. And his influences, they 00:10:02.320 --> 00:10:04.460 reflect that really weird mix. He wasn't just 00:10:04.460 --> 00:10:06.960 listening to Tupac or Biggie. Not at all. He 00:10:06.960 --> 00:10:09.580 cited Kurt Cobain constantly. He loved Papa Roach, 00:10:09.700 --> 00:10:11.980 Three Days Grace. He was a huge Nu Metal fan. 00:10:12.600 --> 00:10:14.899 But in the same breath, he'd talk about loving 00:10:14.899 --> 00:10:19.860 The Weeknd and, surprisingly, Lana Del Rey. Lana 00:10:19.860 --> 00:10:22.120 Del Rey. That feels like a stretch. How does 00:10:22.120 --> 00:10:24.289 that connect? Not if you listen to the lyrics 00:10:24.289 --> 00:10:28.009 and the moves. He was obsessed with the melancholic 00:10:28.009 --> 00:10:31.190 cinematic sadness she projected. Her whole aesthetic 00:10:31.190 --> 00:10:33.669 is about being beautiful and broken, and you 00:10:33.669 --> 00:10:36.289 can hear it in his music. X would go from screaming 00:10:36.289 --> 00:10:39.110 his lungs out over a distorted 808 bass, essentially 00:10:39.110 --> 00:10:43.110 doing nu metal vocals, to singing these incredibly 00:10:43.110 --> 00:10:46.789 fragile, often off -key piano balance. It's that 00:10:46.789 --> 00:10:48.769 versatility that confused people, right? Was 00:10:48.769 --> 00:10:51.850 he a rapper? Was he a punk singer? An emo kid? 00:10:51.929 --> 00:10:53.769 What box did he put him in? He was all of it. 00:10:53.850 --> 00:10:55.909 Yeah. And the internet, especially the kids on 00:10:55.909 --> 00:10:58.669 SoundCloud and Tumblr, they ate it up. He formed 00:10:58.669 --> 00:11:00.889 the collective members only with Ski Mask and 00:11:00.889 --> 00:11:02.809 they started generating this really intense cult 00:11:02.809 --> 00:11:05.490 following in South Florida. But the match in 00:11:05.490 --> 00:11:07.529 the powder keg, the song that changed everything, 00:11:07.769 --> 00:11:10.250 was Look At Me. I remember the first time I heard 00:11:10.250 --> 00:11:11.509 Look At Me. I actually checked my headphones 00:11:11.509 --> 00:11:13.190 because I thought the wire was loose. The bass 00:11:13.190 --> 00:11:15.429 was so fuzzy, so blown out. It was an assault 00:11:15.429 --> 00:11:18.850 on the ears, released in late 2015, but it doesn't 00:11:18.850 --> 00:11:22.909 really go nuclear until early 2017. And we have 00:11:22.909 --> 00:11:24.450 to address the elephant in the room when we talk 00:11:24.450 --> 00:11:27.009 about that, or rather the owl in the room. The 00:11:27.009 --> 00:11:29.870 KMT controversy. This is a classic moment in 00:11:29.870 --> 00:11:32.529 Internet music history. Drake, the biggest artist 00:11:32.529 --> 00:11:35.970 in the world, previews a song called KMT during 00:11:35.970 --> 00:11:39.450 a show in Amsterdam. And the flow, that aggressive 00:11:39.450 --> 00:11:42.750 triplet flow, sounded suspiciously similar to 00:11:42.750 --> 00:11:45.159 the one on... Look at me. That, like a hooligan 00:11:45.159 --> 00:11:48.320 eye, I'm just like, ah! That cadence. Exactly, 00:11:48.360 --> 00:11:50.299 that cadence. Now, to be fair, the triplet slow 00:11:50.299 --> 00:11:52.279 is pretty common in rap. It was popularized by 00:11:52.279 --> 00:11:55.139 Migos. But the cadence, the delivery, the aggression, 00:11:55.399 --> 00:11:58.340 it felt very, very similar. And Drake denied 00:11:58.340 --> 00:12:01.960 stealing it. Of course. But X, X was in jail 00:12:01.960 --> 00:12:04.299 at the time, facing charges, and he went on the 00:12:04.299 --> 00:12:06.919 warpath from his jail cell. He gave interviews 00:12:06.919 --> 00:12:09.399 over the phone calling Drake a bitch. He accused 00:12:09.399 --> 00:12:11.299 him of stealing culture from an incarcerated 00:12:11.299 --> 00:12:13.860 kid. Which is such a bold move for an underground 00:12:13.860 --> 00:12:16.620 artist who's, you know, facing serious felony 00:12:16.620 --> 00:12:19.419 charges to just go after the biggest star in 00:12:19.419 --> 00:12:21.220 the world like that. But it worked. It was the 00:12:21.220 --> 00:12:23.700 perfect David versus Goliath narrative. Suddenly, 00:12:23.720 --> 00:12:25.740 millions of Drake fans who had never heard of 00:12:25.740 --> 00:12:28.580 X were asking, who is this kid with a half blonde, 00:12:28.720 --> 00:12:31.240 half black hair? The Cruella de Vil look. That 00:12:31.240 --> 00:12:34.870 branding was just undeniable. It was. But here 00:12:34.870 --> 00:12:37.830 is where the story takes a very, very sharp and 00:12:37.830 --> 00:12:40.710 dark turn. Because while his Spotify numbers 00:12:40.710 --> 00:12:43.350 are ticking up into the millions, his real life 00:12:43.350 --> 00:12:46.149 is spiraling into absolute unchecked violence. 00:12:46.690 --> 00:12:48.950 And we need to talk about this cycle of violence 00:12:48.950 --> 00:12:51.029 section of our research. And I want to be very 00:12:51.029 --> 00:12:53.149 clear to you listening. This isn't just he got 00:12:53.149 --> 00:12:56.289 into some fights. This is serious criminal behavior. 00:12:56.649 --> 00:12:58.450 Yeah, looking at the timeline, the rap sheet 00:12:58.450 --> 00:13:00.509 is longer than the discography at this point. 00:13:00.610 --> 00:13:03.419 It starts with the robbery in 2016. The home 00:13:03.419 --> 00:13:07.039 invasion of a man named Shea Thomas. X and some 00:13:07.039 --> 00:13:09.620 associates break in. Pistol whip the guy, steal 00:13:09.620 --> 00:13:12.820 an iPad, a PlayStation, and $20. It's gritty, 00:13:12.919 --> 00:13:16.320 low -level violent crime. He pleads no contest, 00:13:16.600 --> 00:13:20.460 gets probation, but then the table has incident. 00:13:20.759 --> 00:13:23.320 Dylan Turner, who is his manager. His own manager. 00:13:23.460 --> 00:13:25.519 This one is chilling because it's not random. 00:13:25.559 --> 00:13:27.519 It's someone on his own team. There's a dispute 00:13:27.519 --> 00:13:30.000 over money, a few thousand dollars. X believes 00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:32.259 Turner is withholding cash from him. So what 00:13:32.259 --> 00:13:33.899 does he do? He breaks into Turner's apartment. 00:13:34.200 --> 00:13:36.620 He holds a knife to his stomach, screaming, what 00:13:36.620 --> 00:13:38.399 if I stab you? What if I kill you right now? 00:13:38.559 --> 00:13:40.519 And then he actually does it. He plunges the 00:13:40.519 --> 00:13:43.500 knife into his abdomen. And the aftermath is 00:13:43.500 --> 00:13:45.940 just as indicative of his psychology as the act 00:13:45.940 --> 00:13:49.220 itself. X allegedly forces Turner to drop the 00:13:49.220 --> 00:13:51.679 charges in exchange for returning his computer, 00:13:51.879 --> 00:13:55.299 which held all his music files. But X had already 00:13:55.299 --> 00:13:57.860 wiped the computer clean. That's incredibly manipulative. 00:13:58.059 --> 00:14:00.379 It's Machiavellian. And then as a final twist, 00:14:00.580 --> 00:14:03.399 he pays Turner's hospital bills and apologizes. 00:14:03.899 --> 00:14:07.500 It establishes this terrifying pattern, an extreme, 00:14:07.519 --> 00:14:10.960 impulsive, violent act, followed by a transactional 00:14:10.960 --> 00:14:13.200 attempt to fix it. I stabbed you, but here's 00:14:13.200 --> 00:14:14.779 the money for the stitches, so we're good, right? 00:14:15.049 --> 00:14:17.429 But even the Tabs Liz incident, as awful as it 00:14:17.429 --> 00:14:19.470 is, it gets completely overshadowed by the name 00:14:19.470 --> 00:14:22.389 Geneva Ayala. Geneva Ayala. This is the center 00:14:22.389 --> 00:14:25.570 of the moral black hole when it comes to XXXTentacion. 00:14:25.909 --> 00:14:28.190 She was his ex -girlfriend. And the allegations 00:14:28.190 --> 00:14:30.669 she brought forward in October 2016 are some 00:14:30.669 --> 00:14:32.509 of the most disturbing I've ever read in any 00:14:32.509 --> 00:14:34.350 celebrity case. We have to warn you listening 00:14:34.350 --> 00:14:37.330 here. This is graphic. It is. She accused him 00:14:37.330 --> 00:14:40.539 of beating her regularly. of choking her until 00:14:40.539 --> 00:14:42.779 she passed out, of holding her head underwater 00:14:42.779 --> 00:14:46.279 in the bathtub until she nearly drowned, of threatening 00:14:46.279 --> 00:14:48.299 to cut her tongue out with a knife. And there 00:14:48.299 --> 00:14:50.799 was a specific incident involving, what, a barbecue 00:14:50.799 --> 00:14:53.600 fork? A barbecue fork and a wire grill brush. 00:14:53.840 --> 00:14:56.340 He allegedly held them up to her face and told 00:14:56.340 --> 00:14:58.080 her to pick which one he was going to penetrate 00:14:58.080 --> 00:15:01.679 her with. It's torture. It's sadism. And the 00:15:01.679 --> 00:15:04.120 charge that stuck the hardest in the public consciousness, 00:15:04.259 --> 00:15:06.899 the one everyone remembers, was aggravated battery 00:15:06.899 --> 00:15:09.340 of a pregnant woman. Now, there is some dispute 00:15:09.340 --> 00:15:11.700 in the sources about the pregnancy itself. Right. 00:15:11.779 --> 00:15:15.059 And it's a key point. Later, in secretly recorded 00:15:15.059 --> 00:15:17.700 audio, you can hear X telling his friends that 00:15:17.700 --> 00:15:20.399 he doubted she was actually pregnant. But in 00:15:20.399 --> 00:15:22.519 the eyes of the law, and certainly in the context 00:15:22.519 --> 00:15:25.200 of the abuse, the terror he inflicted was real, 00:15:25.299 --> 00:15:27.460 regardless of her medical status at the time. 00:15:27.519 --> 00:15:29.940 And his fans. His fan base. They didn't believe 00:15:29.940 --> 00:15:32.250 her. Or maybe they just didn't care. This is 00:15:32.250 --> 00:15:35.509 the cult aspect we talked about. His fans went 00:15:35.509 --> 00:15:38.669 after Ayala. They harassed her online. They doxed 00:15:38.669 --> 00:15:40.590 her. They showed up at her court dates to intimidate 00:15:40.590 --> 00:15:42.870 her. They claimed she was lying for money. They 00:15:42.870 --> 00:15:45.070 claimed her very visible injuries were just makeup. 00:15:45.470 --> 00:15:48.269 They concocted this entire online conspiracy 00:15:48.269 --> 00:15:51.950 that she was framing him to ruin his career just 00:15:51.950 --> 00:15:54.690 as it was taking off. But then years later, after 00:15:54.690 --> 00:15:57.490 he died, the pitchfork tape comes out. The smoking 00:15:57.490 --> 00:16:01.080 gun. There's no other way to describe it. This 00:16:01.080 --> 00:16:04.080 was secret audio released posthumously by Pitchfork. 00:16:04.519 --> 00:16:07.539 In it, X is talking to some friends and he says 00:16:07.539 --> 00:16:10.860 explicitly on tape, I already bashed her face. 00:16:10.919 --> 00:16:13.539 I made her look bad. He confesses. It's right 00:16:13.539 --> 00:16:16.179 there on tape. It is. And in that same tape, 00:16:16.220 --> 00:16:18.159 he alludes to a completely separate stabbing 00:16:18.159 --> 00:16:20.120 incident involving eight people in Deerfield 00:16:20.120 --> 00:16:22.720 Beach. He says, I got no tear, referring to a 00:16:22.720 --> 00:16:24.940 teardrop tattoo, but I done stabbed eight people. 00:16:25.039 --> 00:16:27.019 So he was admitting to crimes the police didn't 00:16:27.019 --> 00:16:29.000 even have pinned on him. He was bragging about 00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:31.539 it. Yes. And this is the fundamental tension 00:16:31.539 --> 00:16:34.000 of his entire story. You have this tape where 00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:36.080 he sounds like an absolute remorseless psychopath. 00:16:36.559 --> 00:16:38.580 And then you have his debut album, Seventeen. 00:16:38.799 --> 00:16:41.580 Which came out in August of 2017, right in the 00:16:41.580 --> 00:16:43.360 middle of all this. And it is one of the most 00:16:43.360 --> 00:16:45.960 heartbreaking, vulnerable albums you will ever 00:16:45.960 --> 00:16:50.059 hear. Tracks like Jocelyn Flores, dedicated to 00:16:50.059 --> 00:16:51.879 a friend who committed suicide in his hotel room 00:16:51.879 --> 00:16:55.460 while he was there. Fuck love. These songs are 00:16:55.460 --> 00:16:58.259 raw, open wounds. He is singing about wanting 00:16:58.259 --> 00:17:01.200 to die, about being unlovable, about the immense 00:17:01.200 --> 00:17:03.720 pain inside him. And that's the hook, isn't it? 00:17:03.740 --> 00:17:05.720 That's the core of the paradox. If he was just 00:17:05.720 --> 00:17:08.799 a violent thug, nobody would care. But he was 00:17:08.799 --> 00:17:10.960 a violent thug who could articulate the depths 00:17:10.960 --> 00:17:13.000 of teenage depression better than anyone else 00:17:13.000 --> 00:17:15.319 in the entire genre. He effectively monetized 00:17:15.319 --> 00:17:17.900 his own mental illness. He created a parasocial 00:17:17.900 --> 00:17:20.500 relationship where his fans felt like, he gets 00:17:20.500 --> 00:17:23.259 me, he is damaged just like I am. And because 00:17:23.259 --> 00:17:26.059 they identified so deeply with his pain, they 00:17:26.059 --> 00:17:28.660 felt compelled to defend his violence. It's like, 00:17:28.759 --> 00:17:31.079 to them, Geneva Ayala wasn't a victim of his 00:17:31.079 --> 00:17:33.500 violence. She was an obstacle to his happiness. 00:17:33.759 --> 00:17:36.710 She was the reason their hero was sad. It's a 00:17:36.710 --> 00:17:39.109 deeply twisted logic. It's weaponized empathy. 00:17:39.369 --> 00:17:42.009 He used his own vulnerability as a shield for 00:17:42.009 --> 00:17:44.230 his brutality. That is a perfect way to put it. 00:17:44.269 --> 00:17:47.529 Yeah. And it worked. His second album, which 00:17:47.529 --> 00:17:50.789 came out in early 2018, debuts at number one 00:17:50.789 --> 00:17:54.950 on the Billboard 200. Sad becomes a global anthem. 00:17:55.420 --> 00:17:58.539 He is by every metric on top of the world, but 00:17:58.539 --> 00:18:00.940 the legal walls are closing in fast. He's facing 00:18:00.940 --> 00:18:03.400 decades in prison. The witness tampering charges 00:18:03.400 --> 00:18:06.079 were piling up. And this brings us to early 2018, 00:18:06.380 --> 00:18:08.990 the redemption arc or. the alleged redemption 00:18:08.990 --> 00:18:11.910 the helping hand era suddenly x's social media 00:18:11.910 --> 00:18:14.529 completely changes he's posting about charity 00:18:14.529 --> 00:18:16.829 he's donating instruments and video games to 00:18:16.829 --> 00:18:19.410 foster homes he starts the helping hand challenge 00:18:19.410 --> 00:18:21.789 encouraging other rappers to do good deeds then 00:18:21.789 --> 00:18:23.569 he gets involved with parkland which was a huge 00:18:23.569 --> 00:18:25.710 story at the time the stoneman douglas shooting 00:18:25.710 --> 00:18:28.230 happened right in his backyard it was his community 00:18:28.230 --> 00:18:31.390 he released a song hope and dedicated it to the 00:18:31.390 --> 00:18:34.380 victims He went and visited Anthony Borges, a 00:18:34.380 --> 00:18:36.660 survivor who was shot five times, in the hospital. 00:18:36.819 --> 00:18:38.640 He announced he was going back to school to get 00:18:38.640 --> 00:18:40.920 a GED. He was settling down with a new girlfriend, 00:18:41.119 --> 00:18:43.500 Genesis Sanchez. So I have to play the skeptic 00:18:43.500 --> 00:18:46.000 here. I look at this timeline and I say, his 00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:48.259 massive domestic violence trial is coming up. 00:18:48.420 --> 00:18:50.420 His lawyer almost certainly told him to clean 00:18:50.420 --> 00:18:52.920 up his public image so the jury sees a philanthropist, 00:18:52.920 --> 00:18:55.339 not a monster. That is the cynical and perhaps 00:18:55.339 --> 00:18:58.220 the most realistic view. The timing is incredibly 00:18:58.220 --> 00:19:01.599 suspicious. If he goes to trial as XXXTentacion 00:19:01.599 --> 00:19:03.799 the monster, he clearly gets 20 years. He goes 00:19:03.799 --> 00:19:06.259 as Yase the reformed philanthropist, maybe he 00:19:06.259 --> 00:19:09.339 gets leniency. It's a classic PR move. But is 00:19:09.339 --> 00:19:11.839 it possible it was real? That there was a genuine 00:19:11.839 --> 00:19:14.400 change happening? We also have to consider he 00:19:14.400 --> 00:19:16.880 was only 20 years old. The human brain isn't 00:19:16.880 --> 00:19:19.660 even fully developed at that age. Is it possible 00:19:19.660 --> 00:19:22.200 he was genuinely horrified by who he had become? 00:19:22.740 --> 00:19:25.200 He talked a lot about wanting to kill his old 00:19:25.200 --> 00:19:28.549 self. He said in a vlog, I'm going to stop being 00:19:28.549 --> 00:19:30.710 a bad person. I'm going to be a better person. 00:19:30.869 --> 00:19:33.690 He was also getting into some really weird spiritual 00:19:33.690 --> 00:19:36.309 stuff around this time, right? This wasn't just 00:19:36.309 --> 00:19:38.569 like, I'm going to start going to church. Oh, 00:19:38.589 --> 00:19:41.769 no, not at all. It was anthroposophy, the philosophy 00:19:41.769 --> 00:19:45.190 of Rudolf Steiner. That's a deep cut for a SoundCloud 00:19:45.190 --> 00:19:48.309 rapper from Florida. What even is that? It's 00:19:48.309 --> 00:19:50.490 very esoteric. It's a spiritual philosophy that 00:19:50.490 --> 00:19:53.069 deals with, you know, spiritual science and the 00:19:53.069 --> 00:19:54.829 nature of the human being. He was reading books 00:19:54.829 --> 00:19:57.150 on the occult. He was obsessed with the concept 00:19:57.150 --> 00:20:00.029 of indigo children. Indigo children. It's this 00:20:00.029 --> 00:20:03.130 new age idea that certain youths possess special, 00:20:03.269 --> 00:20:07.009 almost supernatural traits and are here to like 00:20:07.009 --> 00:20:09.890 usher in a new era for humanity. And he believes 00:20:09.890 --> 00:20:11.750 he was one of them. And reincarnation was a big 00:20:11.750 --> 00:20:14.670 theme for him, too. A huge theme. He believed 00:20:14.670 --> 00:20:17.250 in the cycle of death and rebirth. He told people 00:20:17.250 --> 00:20:19.210 that he felt he couldn't break the cycle and 00:20:19.210 --> 00:20:21.890 move on until he lived one life without harming 00:20:21.890 --> 00:20:24.170 other people. Which he clearly had not done. 00:20:24.410 --> 00:20:26.990 And he knew that. He felt he had already failed 00:20:26.990 --> 00:20:29.930 the test for this lifetime. He was obsessed with 00:20:29.930 --> 00:20:32.509 the color blue during this period, dyeing his 00:20:32.509 --> 00:20:35.410 hair blue, buying a blue microphone. He was trying 00:20:35.410 --> 00:20:38.009 to signal this profound spiritual shift, whether 00:20:38.009 --> 00:20:40.609 it was mania or genuine growth or just a really 00:20:40.609 --> 00:20:44.339 good PR strategy. We never got to find out. Because 00:20:44.339 --> 00:20:47.099 of June 18th, 2018? The day the clock ran out. 00:20:47.500 --> 00:20:50.539 Riva Motorsports, Deerfield Beach, Florida. Walk 00:20:50.539 --> 00:20:52.339 us through what happened. The sources are pretty 00:20:52.339 --> 00:20:54.220 clear. This wasn't a random drive -by shooting. 00:20:54.440 --> 00:20:57.279 This was a setup. It was a targeted ambush. X 00:20:57.279 --> 00:20:58.779 goes to the dealership to look at motorcycles. 00:20:59.240 --> 00:21:01.480 He's with his uncle, and he's carrying a Louis 00:21:01.480 --> 00:21:05.000 Vuitton bag. Inside that bag is $50 ,000 in cash. 00:21:05.400 --> 00:21:07.539 It's hearing around 50 grand. It's the rapper 00:21:07.539 --> 00:21:10.500 lifestyle. It's a flex. He had just gone to the 00:21:10.500 --> 00:21:13.920 bank. But it made him a target. He leaves the 00:21:13.920 --> 00:21:17.000 dealership, gets into his black BMW i8, which 00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:19.220 is a very conspicuous car. It has those dramatic 00:21:19.220 --> 00:21:21.619 butterfly doors. He tries to pull out of the 00:21:21.619 --> 00:21:24.700 parking lot. And he blocks. A black Dodge Journey 00:21:24.700 --> 00:21:27.279 SUV cuts him off, blocking the exit completely. 00:21:27.859 --> 00:21:30.380 Two men jump out. They're masked. They're armed. 00:21:30.539 --> 00:21:32.279 They don't say get out of the car. They don't 00:21:32.279 --> 00:21:34.559 try to carjack him. They go straight for that 00:21:34.559 --> 00:21:37.079 Louis Vuitton bag. There's a struggle over the 00:21:37.079 --> 00:21:39.579 bag. A brief one. X refuses to let go of it. 00:21:40.559 --> 00:21:44.380 And then shots are fired multiple times at point 00:21:44.380 --> 00:21:47.099 blank range in the neck. The robbers grab the 00:21:47.099 --> 00:21:49.079 bag, jump back in the SUV, and they peel off. 00:21:49.180 --> 00:21:51.339 And X is just left slumping in the driver's seat. 00:21:51.500 --> 00:21:54.180 And just like that, the most controversial, the 00:21:54.180 --> 00:21:56.480 most streamed, the most hated, and the most loved 00:21:56.480 --> 00:21:59.359 artist of his entire generation is gone. At 20 00:21:59.359 --> 00:22:01.779 years old. The aftermath was just, it was insane. 00:22:01.839 --> 00:22:03.839 I remember the videos circulating on social media 00:22:03.839 --> 00:22:05.819 before the news outlets had even confirmed it. 00:22:05.920 --> 00:22:08.059 It was the first smartphone assassination of 00:22:08.059 --> 00:22:10.789 a major star. It was a new level of macabre. 00:22:11.109 --> 00:22:13.710 Fans were watching these blurry, horrific videos 00:22:13.710 --> 00:22:17.950 of his body in the car on Twitter while TMZ was 00:22:17.950 --> 00:22:20.690 still trying to verify the death. It was gruesome 00:22:20.690 --> 00:22:24.869 and it was immediate. And the music just exploded. 00:22:24.990 --> 00:22:28.170 Sad. Jumped from number 52 all the way to number 00:22:28.170 --> 00:22:31.049 one on the Billboard Hot 100. It was the first 00:22:31.049 --> 00:22:33.690 posthumous number one for a lead artist since 00:22:33.690 --> 00:22:37.279 the notorious B .I .G. in 1997. That puts him 00:22:37.279 --> 00:22:39.319 in the history books forever. But the legal system 00:22:39.319 --> 00:22:41.359 didn't stop. They did catch the guys who did 00:22:41.359 --> 00:22:44.619 it. They did. Four men. Michael Boatwright, Trayvon 00:22:44.619 --> 00:22:48.019 Newsom, Badrick Williams and Robert Allen. Took 00:22:48.019 --> 00:22:50.960 a long time. The trial wasn't until 2023. But 00:22:50.960 --> 00:22:52.299 three of them were convicted of first degree 00:22:52.299 --> 00:22:54.940 murder. Life sentences. It wasn't a rival rap 00:22:54.940 --> 00:22:56.779 beef. It wasn't some grand conspiracy. It was 00:22:56.779 --> 00:22:59.359 just a robbery gone horribly wrong. Just greed. 00:22:59.660 --> 00:23:01.359 They wanted the bag. But now we're left with 00:23:01.359 --> 00:23:03.450 the legacy. And this is a really hard part. His 00:23:03.450 --> 00:23:06.009 estate, his mother, they started releasing posthumous 00:23:06.009 --> 00:23:09.210 albums. Skins. Bad Vibes Forever. And this is 00:23:09.210 --> 00:23:10.769 where it gets kind of icky for a lot of people. 00:23:11.309 --> 00:23:14.109 Skins was barely 20 minutes long. It felt unfinished. 00:23:14.750 --> 00:23:17.569 Bad Vibes Forever felt like a Frankenstein project. 00:23:17.970 --> 00:23:20.450 They were taking unfinished demos, sometimes 00:23:20.450 --> 00:23:22.430 just a hook or a mumble track he had recorded 00:23:22.430 --> 00:23:24.809 on his phone, and slapping three or four guest 00:23:24.809 --> 00:23:27.690 features on it to create a song. It really felt 00:23:27.690 --> 00:23:30.460 like they were milking a ghost. It did. And then 00:23:30.460 --> 00:23:33.119 they released NFTs of his old music. It felt 00:23:33.119 --> 00:23:34.960 like the commercial machine was just stripping 00:23:34.960 --> 00:23:37.799 the carcass for parts. Critics, they hated it. 00:23:37.839 --> 00:23:40.839 They called it exploitative. But the fans, they 00:23:40.839 --> 00:23:42.880 consumed all of it. They were just desperate 00:23:42.880 --> 00:23:45.460 for anything new from him in any form. So where 00:23:45.460 --> 00:23:47.200 do we land on this? How do you sum it all up? 00:23:47.259 --> 00:23:49.500 We have the diamond records. We have the confirmed 00:23:49.500 --> 00:23:51.660 domestic abuse. We have the music that helped 00:23:51.660 --> 00:23:54.240 millions of kids. We have the tragic, violent 00:23:54.240 --> 00:23:57.700 death. How do we synthesize this? I think X represents 00:23:57.700 --> 00:24:00.539 the death of the perfect victim or the perfect 00:24:00.539 --> 00:24:03.900 villain narrative. He was both. He was a perpetrator 00:24:03.900 --> 00:24:06.539 of terrible, unforgivable violence. He broke 00:24:06.539 --> 00:24:09.200 a woman's spirit and her body. That is a fact. 00:24:09.609 --> 00:24:12.329 confirmed by his own voice on that tape. But 00:24:12.329 --> 00:24:14.950 he also, and this is just as true, saved lives. 00:24:15.390 --> 00:24:17.470 Saved lives. You really think that's true, that 00:24:17.470 --> 00:24:19.829 it's not an exaggeration? I've seen the letters 00:24:19.829 --> 00:24:24.910 from fans. I've read thousands of comments. Kids 00:24:24.910 --> 00:24:27.349 who say, I had the pills in my hand, I was going 00:24:27.349 --> 00:24:29.349 to kill myself, but I heard Jocelyn Flores and 00:24:29.349 --> 00:24:32.049 I realized I wasn't alone. You can't just dismiss 00:24:32.049 --> 00:24:34.480 that. You can't take that away from his legacy 00:24:34.480 --> 00:24:37.019 either. It's the classic Wagner problem, right? 00:24:37.519 --> 00:24:40.220 Can beautiful art come from an ugly soul? With 00:24:40.220 --> 00:24:42.299 X, it's even more complex than that. I don't 00:24:42.299 --> 00:24:44.180 think you can separate them because the art was 00:24:44.180 --> 00:24:46.400 the ugliness. The reason the music worked, the 00:24:46.400 --> 00:24:48.920 reason it resonated, was because it was so damaged. 00:24:49.180 --> 00:24:51.220 If he had been a happy, well -adjusted kid from 00:24:51.220 --> 00:24:53.039 the suburbs, he never would have made Look at 00:24:53.039 --> 00:24:55.859 Me or Sad. The trauma that made him a monster 00:24:55.859 --> 00:24:58.319 was the exact same trauma that made him a star. 00:24:58.640 --> 00:25:01.930 That is a terrifying thought. That we as a culture 00:25:01.930 --> 00:25:04.930 rewarded his trauma. We did. We streamed it. 00:25:04.990 --> 00:25:08.609 We consumed it. His legacy is a caution. He absolutely 00:25:08.609 --> 00:25:11.690 changed the sound of modern rap forever. Everyone 00:25:11.690 --> 00:25:14.609 from Juice WRLD to Billie Eilish has cited his 00:25:14.609 --> 00:25:17.130 influence. The distorted bass, the emo lyrics, 00:25:17.289 --> 00:25:19.910 that's the norm now. But he's also a reminder 00:25:19.910 --> 00:25:23.069 that unresolved trauma just destroys everything 00:25:23.069 --> 00:25:25.690 around it. He destroyed his victims. He destroyed 00:25:25.690 --> 00:25:28.470 his own peace of mind. And eventually the violent 00:25:28.470 --> 00:25:30.819 lifestyle he built for himself. Destroyed him. 00:25:30.900 --> 00:25:34.700 If he had lived, if that SUV hadn't blocked him 00:25:34.700 --> 00:25:37.079 in that day, do you think he would have actually 00:25:37.079 --> 00:25:39.839 changed or would we be doing a deep dive right 00:25:39.839 --> 00:25:43.019 now on his 20 year prison sentence? That is the 00:25:43.019 --> 00:25:44.859 unanswerable question, isn't it? Was the helping 00:25:44.859 --> 00:25:47.720 hand era a mask or was it a metamorphosis? We 00:25:47.720 --> 00:25:50.299 will never, ever know. And maybe that mystery, 00:25:50.380 --> 00:25:52.119 that unresolved question mark is why we're all 00:25:52.119 --> 00:25:54.400 still talking about him. A heavy one today, but 00:25:54.400 --> 00:25:57.059 a necessary one, I think. Absolutely. Thanks 00:25:57.059 --> 00:25:58.700 for listening to The Deep Dive. Take care of 00:25:58.700 --> 00:25:59.180 yourselves out there.