“Willy Wonka Was a Child Murderer” by XXXTentacion

“Willy Wonka” is actually a children’s character, one who headlines an American family classic from the early-1970s called Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. And it may seem strange for XXXTentacion to name a song like this after Willy.

But let’s say this. XXXTentacion was a young artist who was recognized as being a spokesman for his generation. He was also one of the pioneers of the emo-rap movement, and his lyrics were often dark in nature.

So as these stories tend to go, the powers-that-be will proceed to blame such artists for the ills of the world. But XXXTentacion was wise enough to know that this wickedness, if you will, did not start with him nor his generation. And one of the reasons he’s able to recognize this is because after all, even “Willy Wonka was a child murderer”.

Or put otherwise, many people are under the impression that the supposed-to-be wholesome Wonka, as fictional as he may be, was actually, depicted as a child murder. And thus, it can also be said that in a roundabout way the uber-popular film itself, which is meant to serve as a morality lesson to children, sort of advocates such action, or however you phrase such an argument.

But with that out of the way, the terse lyrics don’t appear to have anything to do with said film. Instead, we basically have the vocalist(s) spazzing “it’s all in my head”. That’s another way of recognizing that he is plagued mentally, as if his perception of reality is skewed. And this was a recurring theme in XXXTentacion’s music, i.e. the notion that ‘demons’ or what have you were his constant psychological companions.

When was “Willy Wonka Was a Child Murderer” released?

This is the title track to an EP XXXTentacion (1998-2018) self-released on 28 April 2016. 

In June of 2022, “Willy Wonka Was a Child Murderer” was also featured on “Look at Me: The Album”. This is the soundtrack album to the posthumous XXXTentacion documentary it shares name with.

Other notable tracks found on this project are:

• “I Spoke to the Devil in Miami, He Said Everything Would Be Fine”
• “Jocelyn Flores”
• “Everybody Dies in Their Nightmares”
• “True Love”
• “Moonlight”
• “Sad!”

Credits

The backup vocalist throughout was one of X’s regular collaborators in King Yosef.

XXXTentacion wrote this song with Yosef. Yosef handled the production duties of the track with Prxz.