Kendrick Lamar received a special shoutout from XXXTentacion’s father.
On Monday, June 24, Dwayne Ricardo Onfroy took to Instagram to share a few words of gratitude for the Compton-born rapper. Dwayne, who currently resides in Jamaica, specifically praised K. Dot for supporting his late son early on in his career and consigning X’s 2017 debut album, 17.
“Special big-up, shoutout goes to Kendrick Lamar, yeah. Powerful king, powerful, powerful,” Dwayne said in the video. “My name is Dwayne Onfroy, father of [the] rapper known as XXXTentacion. I just want to say, first of all, thank you for giving my son a platform when he was an unknown artist, on his first single. You gave him a shoutout when his album was released.”
Dwayne was referring to Kendrick’s August 25, 2017, tweet in which he encouraged his followers to listen to 17. The former TDE rapper shared a link to the project’s Apple Music stream along with the caption: “Listen to this album if you feel anything. Raw thoughts.”
Kendrick returned to X (f.k.a. Twitter) a couple of minutes later, confirming he had listened to 17 a total of five times.
“You stepped up to the plate for him when a lot of people just stood by and stood back,” Dwayne continued. “And Spotify had him under pressure and wasn’t even attempting to play songs. Real king. I’ll always respect you for that, always. California was my home, still love Cali. You understand? Kendrick Lamar, salute, salute, salute… Much, much respect, brother.”
In 2018, Spotify pulled X’s records from its highly influential branded playlists, claiming the Florida-bred artist had violated its “hateful conduct” policy. The decision came as X faced mounting backlash over allegations of domestic abuse and a series of controversial social media stunts. While some Spotify customers praised the move, a number of music figures accused the platform of censorship and engaging in double standards.
“I reached out to Troy [Carter, Spotify’s global head of creator services] over there, we had a conversation and I expressed how I felt about it, about censorship, how you can’t do artists that way,” TDE label head Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith told Billboard in 2018. “I don’t think it’s right for artists to be censored, especially in our culture. How did they just pick those [artists] out? How come they didn’t pick out any others from any other genres or any other different cultures? There [are] so many other artists that have different things going on, and they could’ve picked anybody. But it seems to me that they’re constantly picking on hip-hop culture.”
In June 2018, Spotify ultimately reversed its decision, admitting that its “hateful conduct” guidelines were too “vague.”
“We created confusion and concern, and didn’t spend enough time getting input from our own team and key partners before sharing new guidelines,” the streamer wrote in a statement.
Kendrick was reportedly among those who threatened to pull his music from Spotify if the company failed to reinstate the artists who had been affected by the “hateful conduct” policy. X thanked K. Dot for his alleged support.
“Thank you, Kendrick Lamar. I didn’t want to say anything to make him subject to any negative energy, whatsoever, because people find some weird way to do that,” X said in a video. “Thank you again. I appreciate you and many blessings to you and your family. I know a lot of people were and are expecting me to respond negatively but, honestly, there’s no point. I was blessed in the end. I’m appreciative for everything and I’ve changed tremendously, as a person. I’m very grateful for where I am right now.”
