Since becoming an internet phenom at 16, it seems like Lil Pump has spent the better part of his life surrounded by yes-men. Every impulse, every idea sprouted from Pump’s mind is, without hesitation, ushered into this world on a major label’s red carpet. For his 17th birthday, the label rented out a strip club and watched cheerfully as Pump cut into his Xanax-themed cake. Maybe these people are paid to gas Pump up while he plays “Fortnite” like, “Bro you’re the shit, Mr. Pump” or “Damn, Mr. Pump, you have so much money.” Then on very special days, they would chauffeur Pump into a studio, tell him to hop on a beat with EDM horns that will sound great at Rolling Loud, and let Pump churn out enough songs to make his second album, Harverd Dropout.

Lil Pump never needed a first album, let alone a second. In late 2016, when Pump shed his label as Smokepurpp’s younger sidekick and rose to the top of South Florida’s rap scene, he became the prototypical one-song rapper. Everything Pump released was tightly crafted to fit his polarizing, pink-dread-swaying character. Each Pump single hovered around the two-minute mark, featured sinister keys, distorted bass, and lyrics that made more sense if you frequented DJ Akademiks Twitch streams. And importantly, Pump didn’t flood the market or suffer from leaks like many of his peers; his singles would drop months apart and he’d ride the wave expertly until the hype died out.

Eventually, as the labels preyed on Lil Pump, he abandoned his near-flawless template and pushed away from the Chief Keef-by-way-of-Miami aesthetic in favor of being positioned as a pop star. In 2017, Pump was a sensation who felt like he was famous by mistake, but on Harverd Dropout that feeling has vanished, his act is contrived, and the catchphrases sound like they were spat out through predictive text. Often, Pump doesn’t even feel like a real person. The only sign on the album that Pump wasn’t actually born as a 16-year-old in a SoundCloud-funded lab is an occasional pop culture reference like “iCarly” or Derek Fisher.

On Harverd Dropout, Pump exists as a less edgy version of a former Odd Future slogan, “Kill People, Burn Shit, Fuck School.” Pump’s only motivation is to stunt on his old high school teachers. That theme is heavy-handed on the album, as Pump bashes us with a running joke about how he used to go to Harvard before dropping out. Do you get it? It’s because Harvard is for smart people and Lil Pump is, as he says, “A millionaire, but I don’t know how to read.” Pump doubles down on his vendetta against adults on the album opener “Drop Out,” inserting flexes that don't really flex: “Dropped out, now I’m richer than your mom.” (My mom is a high school teacher, Pump.) And most of his money-motivated boasts are similarly head-scratching, like on “Multi Millionaire” when Pump says he’s so rich that he gets on a plane to get Wingstop; download the Yelp app Pump, there are definitely some good local wings in your area.

It’s off-putting when, in the wake of Lil Peep and Mac Miller, Pump trades in his anti-education bars for some easygoing gloats about his drug addiction. “I been smokin’ since I was 11/I been poppin’ pills since I was seven,” Pump says on “Drug Addicts.” His need to brag about drug addiction isn’t alluring, it comes off as a desperate ploy for attention.

Pump’s poor decision making carries over to his beat selection, rapping over instrumentals that sound like he got really into DJ Carnage EDM sets in the last year. The high-budget production does have some bright spots, like unleashing Pump’s purest pop form on the Lil Wayne assisted “Be Like Me.” But a contribution from the reliable Ronny J, who delivers the signature South Florida distortion on “Vroom Vroom Vroom,” is a reminder how far removed Pump is from his lo-fi roots.

And so Lil Pump has become a caricature of himself. He could use a reinvention, or he could reconnect with his hometown scene where he made his name. But with nearly 18 million Instagram followers, Pump has become a behemoth, unlikely to look back. This is now Lil Pump: a timestamp of pop culture clinging to his youth, who just also happens to rap.