Ever since his first set in the basement of Utopia Studios in 2017, rapper Eddie Cox, better known as Sir Eddie C, has been drawing up blueprints for a vehicle that would take his music to the mainstream. After years of teasing that his spaceship is coming, the Belleville native has made good on that promise with an inventive six song EP backed by a clear aesthetic vision.
“Your ideas and aspirations and what you want to do in your life is your spaceship. Philosophically the EP is about using that vehicle to get to the next level,” Cox says.
For Cox, every aspect of a release presents an opportunity to flesh out the music. Rather than drop a few loosely connected tracks, the artist makes use of lore to create connective tissue between songs. His EPs are typically made alongside a high-concept experience that includes worldbuilding and limited edition merchandise that is treated much like a fashion drop.
“I don’t think of promo as marketing anymore. It’s all an extension of the music itself. It really became performance art as opposed to just a rollout for a project,” Cox says.
While some artists swear by a near-constant stream of content, teasers, and photo ops, Cox adopts a more calculated approach, only stepping into the public eye when he’s ready to shine in the spotlight.
“To get the idea off matters so much to me. I am willing to put myself out there and go as hard as possible,” Cox says.
The rapper was oddly quiet for most of 2024, stepping out only to make public appearances as his latest character, an aging reporter whose sole mission is to find the “missing” Sir Eddie C. Clad in a loose suit and a gray wig, “Lee Clark” even made an on-stage appearance performing alongside KV the Writer, who was opening for Big K.R.I.T. at the Power of the Ballot show in October.
“If you’re not dropping a song every three months, people think you fell off. I’m a big fan of going away before I drop music. I intentionally don’t go out anywhere,” says Cox.
While spaceship marks Cox’s progression as a multimedia artist, he started off the same way many aspiring musicians do. Inspired by tastemaker blogs of the era, Cox recalls first making songs on an old MacBook Pro with a dear friend back in 2011.
“In those formative years it was more about figuring out my own sound. I would call it ‘regular people music.’ I was trying to lock in a sound that was ear-catching but still technical in the sense of proficient rapping,” he says. Cox still counts his 2018 single “Change” as a seminal moment in his journey as a songwriter.
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“It’s weird, because the way I look at that song now is that I was channeling my future sound,” he says. 2018 would also see the release of readmission, a five-song EP that features Cox’s first attempt at worldbuilding alongside thinly veiled references to albums he enjoyed as a kid.
“That EP changed everything, because people started looking at me differently,” he says.
Cox spent much of 2019 focusing on noWhere, a hip-hop collective formed with friends and collaborators Zado and Teacup Dragun. From releasing an eight-song collection called yelloW to closing out the year with a blowout event that was free for anyone wearing yellow, this close-knit crew quickly gained prominence in the St. Louis hip-hop community. noWhere was named best new group at the SLUM Fest awards in early 2020, mere weeks before COVID-19 shuttered live events for the foreseeable future.
“I honestly thought that was it, that music was over. From a tone perspective things started to change, and then I made a song called ‘lil Black boy’ that was different from anything I had done before. The song was more socially conscious and had more serious subject matter,” Cox says.
The single led to a fundraising effort of the same name in collaboration with The Village PATH, a local organization that specializes in mental health services. After blowing past the initial goal of $1,000 in under 24 hours, the Lil Black Boy Campaign ultimately raised close to $16,000 for the purpose of providing Black men with free therapy sessions by qualified professionals. The music video for “lil Black Boy,” which prominently featured Cox and his co-star Mason, premiered in September 2020 and was featured on BET Jams in December.
“That experience let me know that we can literally change lives through music, and that anything is possible beyond our wildest imaginations as long as you try and you hit. You just got to go for it and put your best foot forward,” Cox says.
While COVID-19 pumped the brakes for much of the arts and music community, Cox adapted to the new normal with a three-song EP titled soap. The creative rollout for this new release would include a multifaceted collaboration with Profield Reserve, a then-newly opened storefront on Cherokee Street. Not only did he work with the clothing brand to release limited-edition tees, hats and hoodies, but the shop even hosted an intimate concert with Sir Eddie C that was recorded and released on social media the next day. Cox then posted up at Profield to sell and sign pieces from his clothing line until an eventual sell-out.
Most of 2021 was a time of reflection and development for Cox, who eventually re-emerged in 2022 with gelato, a three-song EP wherein the rapper embraced pastels and softer tones in an artistic shift that elevated his stock in the local music community.
“I call gelato the funeral for me being too cool for shit,” he says. From an early promo video that featured a group of kids running through the street toward a handmade facade of an ice cream truck to an actual collaboration at the Gelateria on South Grand with his own signature flavors, Cox adopted the new persona of a mid-century ice cream man serving up sweets and beats.
“I think more than anything gelato showed me the power of storytelling and aesthetics that are different and fun. I looked like a cartoon character splashed into the south side,” he says.
Between performing at Cinco de Mayo in a pink cardigan to selling out The Dark Room and playing a City Park concert for St. Louis CITY SC, Cox established himself without paid ads, national press, or the help of a tastemaker playlist.
“Yeah, I even sold a third of my sneaker collection to make gelato happen,” Cox jokes.
Cox spent much of 2023 plying his craft onstage with a string of standout shows that included Music at the Intersection, SLAM Underground’s celebration for the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, and a live appearance on FOX 2 with Tim Ezell. He closed out the year with the second installment of his annual Sir Eddie C + Friends show, a signature concert series that feels like a live mixtape of artistic allies and like-minded musicians.
After nearly one year of radio silence, Cox reemerged in November 2024 with his latest campaign, “Where is Sir Eddie C?” The series of videos shared on social media featured Cox as “Lee Clark” conducting interviews with members of the music community in an attempt to find the prolific rapper who has gone missing.
“The rollout was really fun because I’m actually acting and showing my personality and being funny. There wasn’t verbal audio in the gelato videos,” he says.
The promos, which can be found on Instagram, culminated in a press conference where Cox appeared in a vintage red and white letterman jacket to let folks know that he’s back and he was just building his spaceship. Oh, and his spaceship does not have a rearview mirror, because he’s not looking back.
“I love the musicality of my old releases but I wanted to make a project that was definitely rap-oriented. At its core hip-hop is competitive. I’ve figured out who I am as an artist and you can compare this project to anybody on a national level,” Cox says.
Cox celebrated the release of spaceship with the third installment of Sir Eddie C + Friends at Atomic by Jamo on December 28 with Blvck Spvde and Aida Ade. With a full tank of rocket fuel, the hip-hop supernova is set to blast off in the year ahead. From 2018’s “Change” to the motivational speech that caps off the last track on spaceship, Sir Eddie C’s body of work is uplifting and undeniably inspirational.
“Don’t give up. Sounds simple, but this is not easy,” he says of the philosophy that got him here. “You gotta keep going. I think that’s the essence of the project.”
