The late rapper can be heard talking about assaulting an ex-girlfriend and stabbing nine people on the tape

Note: This article contains references to domestic violence, assault, and rape that some readers may find disturbing.

When he was shot and killed in June, Florida rapper XXXTentacion was awaiting trial for a 2016 domestic abuse case involving a former girlfriend. He was charged by the Miami-Dade County state attorney’s office with aggravated battery of a pregnant victim, domestic battery by strangulation, false imprisonment, and witness tampering, accusations the alleged victim detailed in a January 2017 deposition. He pleaded not guilty to the charges and maintained his innocence up until his death.

Now, Pitchfork has obtained a secretly recorded tape of XXXTentacion talking with acquaintances around the time of his October 8, 2016 arrest. Discussing his ex-girlfriend, who he believed had cheated on him, XXXTentacion can be heard saying, “I put my source of happiness in another person, which was a mistake initially, right? But she fell through on every occasion until now. Until I started fucking her up bruh. I started fucking her up because she made one mistake. And from there, the whole cycle went down. Now she’s scared. That girl is scared for her life. Which I understand.” He did not detail what he had done to the alleged victim. Earlier in the recording, he said, “I will kill that bitch if she play with me.” (Hear an excerpt from the recording below.)

Pitchfork acquired the 27-minute tape from the Miami-Dade County state attorney’s office. According to the office, both the prosecution and XXXTentacion’s defense considered the tape a confession. (Criminal cases against XXXTentacion, whose real name is Jahseh Onfroy, were closed after his death. His most recent defense attorney did not return Pitchfork’s emails or phone calls prior to deadline.) The state attorney’s office provided the name of the person who made the recording, an acquaintance of XXXTentacion’s; the person declined to comment to Pitchfork. The state attorney’s office did not provide the identities of other people on the tape, and their identities are unclear. In the recording, XXXTentacion’s acquaintances can be heard telling him that he cannot have “private time” with the alleged victim and trying to talk him down from thoughts of suicide.

On the tape, in addition to the threats against his ex-girlfriend, XXXTentacion also referred to a stabbing incident in Deerfield Beach, Florida, saying, “I’m on [Miami] New Times for stabbing, how many people they put in the news? They said three, it was eight.” (On January 21, 2016, a local Florida newspaper reported that police were “searching for the person who stabbed three people during a fight in Deerfield Beach.” There is no record of anyone being charged with the stabbing, but a Broward County Sheriff’s Office report from the incident states that a witness “saw an unknown black male with tattoos on his face swinging a knife in multiple directions.”) XXXTentacion also admitted to stabbing a former manager, an incident that he was arrested for in Orange County, Florida, on July 14, 2016, before being released on bond shortly afterward. These acts of violence were mentioned on the tape to explain why his ex-girlfriend was scared for her life. “She’s seen this shit,” XXXTentacion said. “She know.”

After going to jail over the allegations in October 2016, XXXTentacion went on to top the Billboard albums chart and he has continued to galvanize debate even after his passing, breaking a streaming record previously held by Taylor Swift. His comments in the tape further hinted at some of the bleak themes in his music. “You ever seen somebody get their tongue cut out? … You ever seen somebody get raped? … You ever seen somebody try to kill your mom in front of you?” he asked an unidentified man, by way of explaining how events he had witnessed affected his own violent behavior. “Every night you go to sleep and you remember what you seen and you remember how it felt and you remember that horrible feeling in your soul. Nobody can comfort you. It’s something I gotta deal with.”

Read the full transcription.