XXXTentacion - Skins

The Guardian 40

(Empire)

Related: Why XXXTentacion's violent confession matters even after his death

The narrative arc of Jahseh Onfroy’s creative life was brief but steep, ending in his murder in June. Any discussion of this posthumous album – XXXTentacion’s second release this year – can’t avoid the rapper’s long charge sheet of violent abuse (aggravated battery of his pregnant former girlfriend, for starters). The New York Times suggests this album is being independently released due to its author’s toxicity.

Pitchfork 30

Underneath it all, the posthumous album from the Florida rapper is woefully aimless and structurally unsound.

The Guardian 0

Shot dead in June, the rapper has since stormed charts worldwide. This posthumous album reveals a maverick talent – and a grim contribution from Kanye West

Ever since the day in May 1958 when Jerry Lee Lewis fetched up for a British tour in the company of a 13-year-old girl who turned out to be his wife, rock and pop music has offered fans ample opportunity to consider the wisdom or otherwise of separating the art from the artist. Music’s history comes liberally sprinkled with paedophiles, murderers, racists, domestic abusers, homophobes and violent criminals, among them some figures of pivotal artistic importance. The question of how the listener deals with their personal lives hangs heavy. Ignore it entirely? Pursue a music collection entirely comprised of stuff made by people whose moral integrity matches your own? Take the fingers-in-the-ears approach and assume innocence? Develop a personal sliding scale, in which some terrible transgressions are more terrible than others?