Time is ticking for JPEGMAFIA

It’s unclear whether he’s being coy or whether he’s truly faithless about his own talent. The 29-year-old rapper from Brooklyn, born Barrington Hendricks, has already set a career precedent for releasing expansive yet laser-focused music. His last studio album Veteran, released in 2018, was warmly received by fans and music press alike, amassing beaming reviews and appearing on most end-of-year lists. Since leaving Japan, where he was living on a military stay, in 2015, Hendricks has experienced a steady upward trajectory, much of it due to the internet, a medium that has heavily influenced his aesthetic and artistic sensibilities.

Like the internet – specifically social media – JPEGMAFIA’s music is intensely frenzied, his beats propelled by a sense of urgency, and his lyrics a near-constant, cacophonic barrage that refuses to let you take a breather. “I really do embrace the internet in a way that I think not even just rappers but people in general don’t,” he says. “That’s why I put this mouse click on my face. I wanted to pay tribute to the internet in some way.”

It’s a small face tattoo; a computer cursor that sits right on his left cheekbone, pointing towards his left eye. He got it last year, once positive reviews of Veteran began rolling in. The politically provocative album was certainly primed for the internet. JPEGMAFIA is a natural and persistent troll. Veteran included lines like “I need all my bitches the same colour as Drake,” and famously included a song called I Can’t Fucking Wait Until Morrissey Dies.

I mention it because on the same day of our interview, Morrissey’s name was trending on Twitter. He had come under fire for wearing a pin supporting the Islamophobic ‘For Britain’ movement on the Jimmy Fallon show. “I was about to say something about that,” he admits. “[But] I don’t even see a point. If it took a pin for people to finally realise that, I don’t know what to tell them. I been said it. I made a song about it.”

A veteran of the Iraq War, Hendricks wrote much of his early music while stationed in Iraq, Kuwait, Germany and Japan, among other places. The experience was “very dark,” he explains. Music provided an escape from the day-to-day brutality of military life, and helped him comprehend a different kind of future for himself. It was in Japan where he joined a group called Ghostpop. Their mixtape garnered a sizeable audience online, his fans still searching for copies. He began pursuing a solo career when he returned to the US to live in Baltimore, and then New York, and now Los Angeles.

But his music remains highly conscious of the political milieu. On Real Nega, the second track on Veteran, he raps, “Alt-right want war, well that’s fine then/ Bitch n***** in the way, well, that’s common/ White boys getting mad ‘cause of my content/ Y’all brave on the web, keep it in the comments.” Another track is called DD Form 214, which is the title for the Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty for US service members. He’s an avid observer of US politics and news, and regards the spectacle with an air of sardonic amusement.