Look At Me: XXXTentacion, director Sabaah Folayan unpicks a divisive legacy
thefader.comTowards the end of Look At Me: XXXTentacion, the new documentary on the life of the late rapper XXXTentacion, director Sabaah Folayan, invisible behind the camera, interviews four of the film’s central sources — X’s mother Cleopatra Bernard, aunt Deandra Ellis, frequent collaborator John Cunningham, and manager Solomon Sobande — as a group.
This time, they aren’t being asked to fill in the blanks on X’s childhood or his career. Instead, Folayan wants them to unpick that the legacy of a man whose music was violent and vulnerable in equal measure, who played up to his reputation as a supervillain until suddenly he didn’t.
For the first time in the film they are asked to confront the fact that XXXTentacion, born Jahseh Onfroy, was indeed an icon to a generation of kids.
But that when he was shot dead in an apparent robbery at the age of 20, he was still facing the charges of aggravated battery, domestic battery, and false imprisonment that had lingered over his short, incendiary time in the public eye.
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