In early April, I began reporting on XXXTentacion’s fanbase in an effort to understand why his followers supported him despite his extensive record of abuse. As the piece was being finalized last week, the 20-year-old rapper born Jahseh Onfroy was fatally shot in Miami. Death changes how we think about artists, especially younger ones. When an artist dies, our relationship to them is often finalized in some way: we choose definitive albums and songs; we convert release dates to holidays and comment fields to memorials; we say goodbye.

Even before he was killed, XXXTentacion’s fate often felt foreclosed. He was charged with battery of a pregnant woman, battery by strangulation, false imprisonment, and witness-tampering, and was also on probation for armed robbery and assault. His troubles were covered more than his art, from critics and listeners bickering over the ethics of consuming his music, to Spotify targeting him in a clumsy policy designed to curb hate and intolerance. His fans and label remained supportive all the while, rewarding his sophomore album ? with a No. 1 debut this spring. But an uncertainty still hung over his career. As the wave of greater public reckoning with sexual assault and abuse of power swept through hip-hop, he became a test case for the ethical future of the genre.

Regardless, XXXTentacion’s high-profile allies within rap remained supportive. He was endorsed by Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole and collaborated with Joey Bada$$, PnB Rock, and Juicy J. On the business side, Capitol Records subsidiary Caroline signed him to a $6 million deal late last year, and weeks ago Kendrick’s label boss Top Dawg played a central role in urging Spotify to walk back its ban, going as far as threatening to pull Top Dawg Entertainment’s entire catalog from the streaming service. The ballast of these industry connections kept XXXTentacion’s ship afloat in the most visible ways, but less seen was the support of his fans.

Why would so many artists and listeners back someone accused of such heinous things? The simple answer is, they really liked his music. A stew of slapdash rap-rock hybrids, his songs thrive on their emotional overlap with his turbulent life. His writing was deeply diaristic, teeming with allusions to his rocky upbringing and his ongoing struggles with mental health. “You,” “I,” and “me” were used emphatically and often, giving his songs a narrow and specific intimacy, like hot breath grazing an ear as whispers flow through a cupped hand. He performed as if he and the listener were in psychic communion. “By listening to this album, you are, and I cannot stress this enough, literally you are entering my mind,” he said at the start of his debut record, 17.

His listeners frequently described this approach as the core of his appeal. Calvo, a fan from Spain who sports a tattoo of the rapper’s face on his thigh, felt that he heard his own thoughts in XXXTentacion’s songs. Jhonatan, from North Carolina, told me, “His music makes you feel connected; [other artists] only make music for a certain time or feeling.” Charlie, a British fan, was drawn to the music’s bareness—how exposed all the emotion could be. Kendrick Lamar offered a similar appraisal. “Listen to this album if you feel anything. Raw thoughts,” Kendrick tweeted on 17’s release date.

These perceptions that XXXTentacion’s music was always sincere and candid, no matter how ugly the thought, informed how his fans processed his history of violence. When asked specifically about how they felt about the charges against the rapper, they often expressed doubt about his guilt. Charlie saw XXXTentacion as a whipping boy for mainstream media outlets with no interest in how music could connect people or offer redemption to artists. He felt the proof of XXXTentacion’s crimes was flimsy. Jhonatan, a deeper skeptic, called XXXTentacion’s ex-girlfriend and alleged victim, Geneva Ayala, a liar.