Edward Skeletrix, Hume’s Paradox of Tragedy, and a Crowd of Eyewitnesses

By Xyomara Reynoso

Edward Skeletrix, c. 2023. Copyright relinquished via CC0 1.0 Universal Deed https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en

A man in a large red coat is seated in an office chair and is being covered in layers of bedsheets by a woman behind him. They are surrounded by a crowd of onlookers anticipating Edward Skeletrix standing up from the chair and potentially performing music. Two men run through the crowd and appear to stab the man several times. A woman runs to the doors pulling them and screaming. The man lies on the ground motionless with bloodstains on the sheets. Edward Skeletrix then walks out and claps. The man who was “stabbed” joins him and they continue the clapping, encouraging the audience to join in. Edward then takes the red coat worth $40,000 and throws it into the crowd. Someone catches it, there is a tussle of people trying to take it for themselves, and the woman who caught it walks forward and the crowd claps for her.

This was the first installation of Edward Skeletrix’s performance art series in collaboration with Daniel Nami (Namski) entitled Jester’s Privilege. I had the privilege to attend the first event entitled “War”. (The others were titled “Perfect Animal”, and “Mother of my Child.”) What unfolded for me and others was a live demonstration of what Jonathan Gilmore and other modern philosophers identify as David Hume's "paradox of tragedy"—the question of why people enjoy art that confronts them with fear, pain, and distress ("Paradox of Tragedy").

Edward King Bass IV, otherwise known as Edward Skeletrix, is a multidisciplinary musician and visual/performance artist who predominantly is known for his experimental underground rap and fashion. Skeletrix not only directly experiments with his art itself; he also curates the relationship the observer has with the art and artists. Despite having two album releases (Museum Music, and Skeletrix Language) and a backlog of singles, alternate accounts, and associated artists, he has not performed any of his music thus far and in his interview on the YouTube channel “Our Generation Music” he said that he would never perform his music. (Our Generation Music, 2025) Instead, his live shows have been performance art exhibitions that force the viewer to question morality and the viewer/artist relationship. He artistically and sonically sits among a splay of extremely controversial artists such as Playboi Carti and Ye (Kanye West), utilizing their genre, aesthetics, and controversy to poke fun at their position in the music landscape and the system that enables them. He seemingly dares the artist not just to dissociate into the music but become aware of their place in that moment.

Despite multiple layers of irony and intentional performative detachment, Edward Skeletrix’s work in the landscape of contemporary trap and rage music is illuminated through David Hume’s lens of the paradox around distress in art. As Hume writes in his essay "Of Tragedy," “It seems an unaccountable pleasure, which the spectators of a well-written tragedy receive from sorrow, terror, anxiety, and other passions, that are in themselves disagreeable and uneasy" (Hume 218).

We should note that the specific pleasure of the art is through the distress that the art evokes, functionally neutralizing it. The negativity doesn’t render the art a “negative” piece of art necessarily; “it just is.” (NAMSKI, n.d.) Edward Skeletrix’s first performance was a live stage to a small artist being attacked and an audience watching and clapping, directly taking fear and panic and subversively converting them into complicity and applause. This atmosphere, created in person, is analogous to the way the Internet incentivizes extreme stunts and spectacles that are broadcast on a global stage for promotional purposes and immortalized through music. The audience becomes complicit and even expects any violent byproducts—and gets enjoyment from the music and the conversion of negative emotions. Everything encapsulated in this digital world coalesces into an aesthetic which fans participate in for its visual language.

This isn’t the first time Edward has used performance art to make a point. A previous performance was held in New York City in which he sat in a plexiglass box and allowed attendees to prod him with objects and pour water over him (similar to Marina Abramović). Disturbingly, the event ended early when fans tried to set him on fire. Jester’s Privilege took place amongst artwork on the walls each with its own bizarre elements in three installations.  Edward’s written statement on Jester's Privilege asserts, “Each physical work is emotionally ambiguous. The performance art’s purpose is to snap the audience into the present, so they can actually experience the work for what it is. The work isn't negative or positive, it just is. I want people to go from questioning what the work means to actually experiencing it in its true form, the present. When they experience the work without labeling it or judging, they can realize there's no difference between the art and themselves, or anything else for that matter. It's a reflection of life and the realness of it." (NAMSKI).

The artist's statement explicitly falls in line with Hume’s paradox when the philosopher observes (again in "Of Tragedy"), "How pleased they [the audience members] are depends on how afflicted they are, and they are never so happy as when they use tears, sobs, and cries to express their sorrow and relieve their heart” (221). The goal of the exhibition wasn’t just to be entertained by a show but to be morbidly present in the moment standing alongside other participants unaware of how the scene will play out in much the same way that this event would carry out in reality—in that the exhibition itself can be deemed quite real. Violence is treated as an expectation instead of an anomaly, and that is a part of the point. Artists and listeners experience violence and use music to release the emotions associated with it and feel safety. After being confronted with the unsafety of the situation and presented a resolution, the audience applauded. 

Edward Skeletrix uses the medium of performance art to demonstrate how the Internet music economy heavily incentivizes stunts. Instead of sitting behind a phone screen not knowing what is real or not, the audience is submerged into a experience they can’t scroll away from—they can’t confirm or deny what they are being subjected to. Pain and fear are all manipulated for one ultimate effect, to be in the moment and to build acceptance and resilience. Edward was as much a part of the show as he was a part of the crowd—and the crowd was as much of an observer as it was the object being observed. Standing on the sidelines the entire time, a person wearing a suit and beanie was holding a card that read “Eye Witness” and standing next to an open suitcase full of contact lenses. His presence was a reminder that everyone who entered that room was amongst and in the art and that everyone was thoroughly present, not as usernames, but, indeed, as eyewitnesses.

Works Cited

Gilmore, Jonathan. “Paradox of Tragedy.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring 2025 ed., edited by Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman, Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2025, plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2025/entries/paradox-of-tragedy/ . Accessed 9 Dec. 2025.

Hume, David. “Of Tragedy.” Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary. Edited by Eugene F. Miller, Liberty Fund, 1985, pp. 218–25.

Our Generation Music. “Well Well Well… | Edward Skeletrix.” YouTube, 14 July 2025, www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tostHxebdY. Accessed 9 Dec. 2025.

NAMSKI. “Jester’s Privilege.” Namski, n.d., www.namski.com. Accessed 9 Dec. 2025.

Xyomara Reynoso is a sophomore at CT State Tunxis.