I feel lucky when I say that I was able to see Death Grips once. It was the Saturday of Bonnaroo in 2013, an unforgivingly hot afternoon on the farm exacerbated by my lack of sleep and general music festival exhaustion. Despite the poor planning on Superfly’s part — slotting the hip hop outfit for a bright, two o’clock set does not match their dark aesthetic — solidified my fandom. Their show, marked with a riotous crowd energy with MC Ride presiding over the mayhem, still ranks as one of the best live performances I’ve witnessed.

Since that performance, I have been stood up by Death Grips twice. The first was at their now-infamous Lollapalooza after show no-show, during which fans gaped at a projected suicide note backdrop and the restless mob collectively ripped apart what was believed to be Zach Hill’s drum set (later revealed to be child’s play drum set). The second would have been their Pitchfork Music Festival performance later this month, a show that I had fantasized about since the festival’s lineup was announced.

But as most music-conscious people now know, Death Grips has broken up, announcing their end in a nonchalant Facebook post last Wednesday evening. “We are now at our best and so Death Grips is over,” the notice read “We have officially stopped.” Shared as a photo of a note written in pigeon-scratch handwriting, they went on to say that all future shows were cancelled, but the second half of their double album, “the powers that b” would be released later this year.

Upon hearing the news, I was shuttled through the first few stages of grief over the next few hours. My denial was quickly shattered by a scroll through social media; my anger at their irresponsibility and lack of care for their fans felt unfocused and oddly inappropriate for a band that exuded a violent ethos. Hating Death Grips and swearing that I would never listen to them again felt childish, and like just the sort of response they might be trying to rouse.

But the Death Grips story is not just that of anger; it’s about a band that did not just claim to “not give a s—,” but one that really didn’t.

The music business is often more business than music, and Death Grips’ anti-tactics, by all means, should have rendered them broke and misguided neerdowells. They purposefully leaked their own album and released later music on Facebook seemingly at random and without warning. In a series of moves that almost appeared to purposefully alienate fans, they scheduled tours, cancelled them, and in Chicago, never bothered to show up.

But most importantly, Death Grips were nihilistic without having an underlying goal of grabbing media attention for their antics. And in an age where even the most punkish or experimental of groups tend to get tied up in major record deals, maintaining relationships with the press, and saving face, this is the real takeaway.

“It’s funny, because Death Grips’ napkin note says words like ‘art’ and actually expects the listeners to think in terms of art, but it’s 2014, and we don’t believe in art anymore,” wrote Consequence of Sound critic Philip Cosores in response. “We believe in pop culture.”

As a fan, I took umbrage with their tour cancellation, and failing to appear at their own show felt like a breach of the fan-artist contract. Breaking up is more of a solidification of what Death Grips truly stood for: art for the sake of art. Sure, they came across as irresponsible at some point, but as a fan, I nonetheless returned. I listened to the records, saw their performance, and witnessed the cultural response.

While I wish I could say that I am seeing Death Grips for the third time next weekend at Pitchfork Music Festival, I’m not. But frankly, using that as an excuse to maintain my anger about the situation is selfish. They never played by the music industry’s rules, and expecting them to do so to please me dilutes their art into that of just some other band.

The discussion about Death Grips will likely resurge in two forms. Drummer Zach Hill, who has performed extensively with other groups, will undoubtedly go on to release other work. The baggage will follow him, critics will joke about whether or not he will attend his own shows or when the group will break up, but it will eventually dissipate. Stefan Burnett (aka MC Ride) and producer Andy Morin’s fates are more difficult to hypothesize, but they would need to work harder to shake the Death Grips label.

Secondly, there will be copycats; if Beyonce’s surprise release of her visual album last year is any indicator, the mimicry will come in both style and antics. Though I can only hope it will be inspired by rather than stolen from, it will likely come in the form of a media ploy crafted by a savvy, piggybacking publicist.

I’m still sad, sure, but I’m not sure if sadness or forgiveness is an appropriate term. Death Grips isn’t about me, you, or the business of music. It was a self-contained system, a project of art that we witnessed break the confines of the political and self-obsessed pop music sphere. Hate it or love it, they did something.