Credit: Jorund Foreland Pedersen

Joey Bada$$ formed a close relationship with XXXTentacion in the years before his death. They collaborated on two songs, ‘Infinity (888)’, which has over 376 million Spotify streams, and a freestyle over Jay Rock and Kendrick Lamar’s ‘King’s Dead’. The duo worked so well together that they were even planning to release a collaborative album.

However, X was killed in Deerfield Beach, Florida, in June 2018 at the age of 20, with three men eventually found guilty of first-degree murder in 2023. Joey released his third album 2000 in 2022 and used the song ‘Head High’ to pay tribute to the late rapper. Throughout the second verse of the track, Joey describes him as a friend who was open to talking about anything.

Over Statik Selektah’s beat, he raps, “Took a trip to Miami that March/ couple weeks right before my daughter got born/ To meet up with this kid by the name of X/ Had to go to him ’cause he was on house arrest, nonetheless/ Our first time meetin’, we was always on the FaceTime/ He offered me his place to stay, ‘Thank you, but I decline’/ First impression in my mind, ‘Now that’s a stand-up n*gga’/ Someone I could call a friend of mine and that’s tough, n*gga.”

Later in the ‘Head High‘ verse, Joey controversially claims that he isn’t concerned about what others think about X, despite facing charges of assault, battery, false imprisonment, and witness tampering at the time of his death.

He continues, “Shit, I could talk about any type of stuff with him/ Never gave a fuck about who didn’t fuck with him/ See, that’s my n*gga, I had to keep it a buck with him/ When he played me his album, I told him what he was missin’/ A lot of n*ggas woulda took that shit different, woulda thought that I was dissin’/ Instead, we found this beat and started riffin’/ Shit had me reminiscin’, had me thinkin’ ’bout Steelo/ Now that I can see his vision.”

Joey once described the track as one of his favourite songs of his career and one that digs deeper than anything he’s written. “This is one of my favourite songs that I’ve ever recorded,” he told XXL. “This is an essential, one of the greatest, most mature, heartfelt records that I’ve ever written … It’s just an important song, and I’m excited to get it out because nobody is putting shit out like this right now.”

Speaking to Montreality, Joey was full of praise for the Florida rapper as a person, comparing him to late Pro Era rapper Capital Steez. “X was a very special dude, he reminded me a lot of myself, Steez, just like the conversations we used to have,” he said. “I remember he called randomly one day, I was on the set of Mr Robot, and he’s like, ‘Bro, what’s your take on aliens?’, and then we got into this whole deep conversation.

“We used to have a lot of FaceTime convos before we actually met in person. I remember going to Miami and working with him at his crib. He was a cool dude, super humble, super down to earth, competitive too, I haven’t felt that competitive nature with another artist since Steez.”