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Museum Music

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3.7

  • Genre:

    Rap

  • Label:

    self-released

  • Reviewed:

    January 24, 2025

The memelord rapper and designer’s 30-track double album is one big, cryptic troll job. It might’ve been funnier if the music were better, but mostly the joke is on him.

Rolling Loud generation beware! Meet Edward Skeletrix, the enigmatic memelord, clothing designer, and rapper with the spirit of a Reddit joker and who is quickly building a parasocial cult following with his new 30-track double album, Museum Music. His backstory is vague—roots in Florida and Atlanta, a SoundCloud baby who’s been floating around the underground for a decade, founder of the streetwear brand syckli—but the schtick seems to be: Consider all of the hack fashion rappers (for one, the Opium guys) getting filthy rich off empty platitudes hidden behind tryhard ambiguity, and now watch Edward do the same thing to prove that the modern-day rap industry and its fans are a bunch of easily manipulated dumbasses. “It kind of scares me how easy it is to create a narrative. I could create a narrative about anything right now and as long as I put in minimal effort and make people emotional, the masses will believe it,” he once posted, in a tone that sounds like he’s alluding to World War III and not Lil Yachty’s podcast or whatever.

The bit loosely goes back to Edward’s 2023 mixtape, Skeletrix Language, on which 10 of 13 tracks are titled “Typical Rap Song” and another is “Rappéur FW 24 SS 24,” a sort of Playboi Carti spoof. Cribbing boilerplate variants of the pyrotechnic rage rap of Yeat’s 2 Alivë and mimicking the foaming-at-the-mouth grumble flows you can spot on Whole Lotta Red, Skeletrix Language is like a mind game. The idea: If he critiques rage, all of the underground rap fans will mindlessly eat up his rage. Got ’em. Maybe I’m giving him too much credit for the master plan, but what makes me think differently is soon after Skeletrix Language he teased a project that never officially materialized, Skeletrix Islvnd Rvdix 66.7, an apparent homage to Blvcklvnd Rvdix 66.6 by SpaceGhostPurrp. Purrp was the leader of Raider Klan who, in the mid 2010s, became so disillusioned with the social politics of underground rap that he dedicated his life to social media rants exposing the artificiality of his former friend A$AP Rocky and the star-fucking ecosystem that propped him up, in a way that blurred the lines between emotional breakdown and prank.

Museum Music could have used a dash of Purrp’s acidic bitterness. It’s mostly one big, cryptic troll job, cloaked by thick layers of irony and various online and real-life stunts, including a Manhattan exhibition that featured Edward Skeletrix motionless inside a glass box. (The show also included art from his friend Brennan Jones, the worst white rapper out, mildly viral for big-upping Kanye’s praise of Hitler in an attempt to troll; in attendance was Joeyy, the other worst white rapper out, with his own meme-fueled, alt-right-adjacent backstory.) “I’m a creative director first before anything, that’s my talent. I don’t like making art,” Edward wrote, virtually deadpan as usual. In my eyes, this statement reads as a send-up of the hollow crap you expect from someone who might have an image from Kanye’s Yeezy Season 3 fashion show printed out on their wall like the Last Supper. That’s the kind of person Edward seems to be ribbing on the second side of Museum Music.

One target could be Travis Scott. On “Life’s So Funny,” Edward’s Auto-Tune hums and the painfully glacial beat (produced by o0o), which predictably morphs into fidgety madness, sounds like a parody of “My Eyes.” “I fell in love with a troll,” croons Edward. Nearly every other lyric feels like a vague gesture toward the vapidness of Ken Carson, from the BBL ogling on “Plastic Body” to Edward’s cliché description of his outfit on “Slave Niggas Still Shop at Neimans”: “I had to put a rip in my jeans/Air Force 1s, they not clean.” Armed with beats that channel everything from washed-out Drain Gang to F1lthy’s moshpit anthems—some of which are cool, like Cavitnak’s surreal gust of noise on “Killing Over Likes” or o0o’s screeching instrumental that sounds like new sneakers sliding on an indoor basketball court on “Typical Rap Song 11”—Edward mostly growls his way through unimaginative and melody-dry alien-speak, imitations that feel like you ended up at a party with a friend group that speaks entirely in inside jokes.

It would probably be funnier if his rapping wasn’t so monotone and zombified. On “Making Art for Money,” his sarcasm, which is usually fuzzy and clunky, works for a moment as he mumbles names like “Basquiat” and “Francis Bacon” for no real reason, a solid bit. Too bad he’s got the energy of an announcement on the PA system at the DMV. That too could be part of the joke, but the songs still have to be listenable. Meanwhile, his critical lampooning isn’t scathing and could easily be reinterpreted if he ever ends up shaking hands with Destroy Lonely or whoever. Edward’s comedy of choice is the kind of deniable poking and prodding you see in the corners of the internet that worship Elon Musk. “Rage baitin’ I’m gettin ’em mad,” he raps in a pig squeal on “Drug Dealer Injects His Fentanyl (Psychosis),” though nothing on Museum Music is sufficiently provocative to push anyone’s buttons. Somebody get him a copy of Prince Paul’s Prince Among Thieves! A hip-hop satire with teeth!

The one time he sharpens his knives is on “Label Meeting,” from the first half of Museum Music (the I’m a Monster side, whatever that means), where he directly calls out the relationship between teenage rapper Nettspend and his older mentor DJ Phat. “Ain’t no DJ Phat, but they giving children drank tonight/So they sign contract, getting these kids fuckin’ high out they mind,” he raps, digging out one of the album’s better plainly sung melodies. He’s not wrong to think that, but it’s sort of bizarre to reserve the most genuine ire for low-hanging fruit.

Actually, gags aside, the entire first half of Museum Music is pretty self-serious. But the sound isn’t much different from side two, as Edward goes on and on without any fun punchlines or clever wordplay over knockoff New Jazz (“Real One”) and regionally nonspecific digital beats (“‘confeti”). (Conspiracy: This is all reverse-engineered to make you appreciate the personalities of the Cartis and Yeats of the world more.) There’s no sign of what Edward is influenced by or where he comes from: The mention of DOOM on “Blue” or the repurposing of an Earl line from “Chum” on “Slave Niggas” is as close as he gets. There’s no vision of an alternative sound or perspective, like De La Soul or Odd Future or Lil B had when they were getting their own jokes off. It’s just the same kind of ultra-polished, opaque, creative-director rap that could be made by anyone with a few fashion world co-signs, the same music his whole persona is built around clowning. Edward Skeletrix’s bit exists as a post-ironic shield: He would love it if you believed his music was avant-garde performance art, but if you don’t, you’re taking it too seriously, because he’s just a prankster. A big, elaborate ruse to obscure the fact that the only thing less moving than Edward Skeletrix the troll is Edward Skeletrix the rapper.