By the looks of his recent social media videos, XXXTentacion is doing his best to diversify his profile as an artist, potentially outside the sonic confines of hip-hop, or at least what listeners perceive those boundaries to be. In a string of clips that he posted over the weekend, X took to the piano and tried his hand at what came across as more of a grunge record, closer to something softer that Kurt Cobain put out while he was part of Nirvana than his previous work in the rap domain. There's no telling what kind of response he will get if there was a full-length project of this nature released in the near future, but the early signs on social media will show that the emcee's fans are mixed when it comes to supporting this new direction in his music.
However, based on a new video upload that went down earlier today (October 17th), his new angle on making music seems to be taking hold, as XXXTentacion shared yet another preview of what's on the way from him. After describing the track as something that will "make your panties wet," the track that he plays a snippet of is of the acoustic variety, sounding like it would be right at home in the middle of one of those MTV Unplugged sets. No title or other key details about the song were divulged by the rapper during the preview, but he did say earlier on in the clip that he was dropping the material later on in the day. Whether or not that proves to be true, since XXX has renegged on that kind of song drop tease before, remains to be seen, however if his new work does find its way onto streaming services, it will be quite interesting to see how his fans react.
What do you think? Is XXXTentacion cut out to handle more experimental, genre-blending fare like what is heard in this clip? Or is he simply overstaying his welcome with fans and is better off focusing on making another rap album like 17? Let us know what you think.