JPEGMAFIA released Experimental Rap today, a 25-track project he wrote, produced and mixed entirely by himself.
The record arrives after an introduction to the era earlier this month with babygirl and then War Over Land, and it includes the tracks babygirl, War Over Land and ¥ (Yen). The album also contains one full-track chopped-up meditation on Kanye West's All Of The Lights and, by one count, a lone feature from Buzzy Lee.
Ratings Game Music called Experimental Rap JPEGMAFIA's first solo statement since I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU. Soundsphere magazine said the release is accompanied by a new video for ¥ (Yen) and that JPEGMAFIA will take Experimental Rap on a 20-date North American tour with redveil and matt proxy beginning in Spokane, Washington on September 22.
The scale is concrete: 25 tracks and a 20-date run starting Sept. 22. Stereogum noted that JPEGMAFIA did not send advance copies of Experimental Rap to critics, and credited him with recent production work for Kanye West and BTS. Soundsphere added that he has had recent surprise contributions to BTS and production work for Maxo Kream and Denzel Curry, and that he toured with Linkin Park on their global From Zero stadium tour.
The way the album was made is as much the story as the music. JPEGMAFIA wrote, produced and mixed the entire project himself — an uncommon claim at this scale — and Stereogum described the record as almost entirely self-produced. In publishing that detail alongside reports that he withheld advance copies, the coverage frames Experimental Rap as a deliberately closed, artist-controlled release.
There is friction between JPEGMAFIA and the music press that shapes how the album lands. Last year, Stereogum said JPEGMAFIA publicly asked for 'pitchfork, gq, anna wintor, conde nast media' to stop reporting about him. That request sits beside the decision not to circulate advance listening copies, a pair of moves that remove traditional critical gatekeeping while also inviting scrutiny about why coverage is unwelcome.
Musically, outlets describe the album as pushing further into rap, noise, punk and experimental production; reviewers and sources call his work noisy, jagged, abrasive and sample-drunk. The inclusion of a full-track rework of All Of The Lights and the solo production credits underline a record built to be confrontational and unmistakably singular in voice and texture.
What happens next is literal and decisive: a new video for ¥ (Yen) and a 20-date North American tour with redveil and matt proxy beginning September 22 in Spokane, Washington. For listeners and for the marketplace, the tour will be the first public test of a record made and presented on the artist's own terms.
JPEGMAFIA has just dropped a record he engineered from start to finish and then stepped back from the usual promotional norms; taken together, those choices are not accidental. Experimental Rap and the accompanying tour amount to a clear reassertion of control — over sound, personnel and publicity — and they set the terms for how this chapter of his career will be judged.
