Skins

## Singles

1. "Bad!"
November 9, 2018

***Skins*** (stylized in all uppercase) is XXXTentacion's third studio album released on December 7, 2018 through Bad Vibes Forever and Empire Records.

It is one of the projects XXXTentacion was working on before his death, and will be his first album to be released posthumously. The lead single, "BAD", was released on November 9. The sole guest feature is American rapper Kanye West. On December 4, 2018, the album was leaked to multiple websites.

## Background

After the release of the Extended Play A Ghetto Christmas Carol in December 2017, XXXTentacion announced he was preparing three new albums and eventually announced the titles of the albums as Bad Vibes Forever, Skins, and ?. XXXTentacion's second studio album ? was released in March 2018. XXXTentacion was shot and killed in June 2018 before the albums Bad Vibes Forever and Skins could be released.

It was posted temporarily on XXXTentacion's Instagram after his death that the album would be "super short. It's literally gonna be a minute", but several publications reported that the album may appear in the unfinished form. Some of the details about the album were shown when an iTunes Store link became active for a period of time on November 7 before being taken down; the page showed that the album had 10 tracks and was a total of 17 minutes long. The page was later reinstated. The only track title shown is that of "BAD!" DJ Scheme, XXXTentacion’s official DJ, stated that Skins will not be XXXTentacion's final posthumous album release.

In September 2018, American rapper and record producer Kanye West privately previewed a song from his upcoming album Yandhi that featured posthumous vocals by XXXTentacion. On November 23, 2018, a snippet of an XXXTentacion song titled "One Minute" that featured West leaked. "One Minute" was later confirmed when the official track listing was revealed on December 3, 2018.

## Promotion

While XXXTentacion had sung a line of "BAD!" and talked about Skins on Instagram prior to his death, it was a rumored project until his team posted on Twitter that further details would be announced on November 9. The pre-order became available shortly after "BAD!" was released.

## Critical reception

The album received generally mixed reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 44, based on nine reviews, indicating "average or mixed reviews." *The Independent*described the album as "another fiery blast of catharsis, a largely metaphor-free space where depression isn't hinted at poetically but invited to throw down". Writing for *XXL*, Scott Glaysher stated "it's a chaotic medley of rock and rap that leaves more questions than answers."  In a negative review, *Slant Magazine* stated "even the songs where Onfroy can be heard for more than a few seconds feel more like demos than finished tracks—an effect that can be haunting, as on the spare, acoustic guitar-driven "Difference (Interlude)" and "What Are You So Afraid Of"."

## Tracklist

1. "Introduction"
2. "Guardian angel"
3. "Train food"
4. "whoa (mind in awe)"
5. "BAD!"
6. "STARING AT THE SKY"
7. "One Minute" (Feat. Kanye West & Travis Barker)
8. "difference (interlude)"
9. "I don't let go"
10. "what are you so afraid of"