XXXTentacion’s Single ‘SAD!’ Certified Diamond
SAD! by American rapper XXXTentacion has been certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) three years after its release. The certification arrived on August 13 after the song moved 10 million units of actual sales and streams in the United States.
The certification also comes three years after XXXTentacion, who is of Jamaican descent, passed away on June 18, 2018, at the young age of 20 when he was fatally shot in Deerfield Beach, Florida.
SAD!, which was written by XXXTentacion (X for short) and produced by John Cunningham, was released as the lead single on the rapper’s second studio album entitled ? on March 2, 2018. The album itself is certified 3X platinum.
It is X’s highest-charting track in the United States, peaking at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 following his death. It made him the first act to earn a posthumous Hot 100 No. 1 single as a lead artist since The Notorious B.I.G. with Mo Money Mo Problems in 1997, and overall, the ninth artist to have topped the chart posthumously.
The song has also amassed more than 1 billion views on YouTube and 1.5 billion streams on Spotify and remains X’s biggest hit single to date.
The music video for X’s Sad! premiered one day after his memorial service at the BB&T Center on June 28, 2018, and has since accumulated 148 million views. It was written and ‘creative directed’ by XXXTentacion himself, and directed by JMP.
Prior to certifying diamond this week, XXXTentacion already had RIAA-certified sales of 61 million units in the US and BPI-certified sales of over 7 million units in the UK, bringing his total to 68 million certified records sold in the two countries.
Along with Sad!, X’s other RIAA certified singles are Moonlight (Platinum 6X), Numb (Platinum), Changes (Platinum 3X), Alone, Part 3 (Gold), The Remedy For A Broken Heart (Platinum 2X), $$$ (Platinum), Hope (Platinum 2X), Going Down (Gold), Before I Close My Eyes (Gold), A Ghetto Christmas Carol (Gold), Infinity (Gold), I Don’t Wanna Do This Anymore (Platinum 2X), Jocelyn Flores (Platinum 5X), Woah ‘Mind In Awe’ (Platinum 6X), Love (Platinum 6X), Everybody Dies In Their Nightmares (Platinum 3X), Carry On (Platinum), Gospel (Gold), I Don’t Let Go (Gold), Look At Me (Platinum 2X), Sauce! (Gold), Arms Around You featuring Maluma & Swae Lee (Platinum), Bad! (Platinum), Falling Down (Platinum), and I Don’t Even Speak Spanish Lol (Gold) plus the albums,? (Platinum 3X), Revenge (Gold), 17 (Platinum 2X), and Skins (Gold).
Since his death, he has won an American Music Award and a BET Hip Hop Award and received 11 Billboard Music Award nominations. Two posthumous albums were released, Skins in 2018 and Bad Vibes Forever in 2019; the former became his second No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 while the latter entered the top 5.