JPEGMAFIA: Veteran [GODMODE]

Why you'll love it

Veteran is the record that made JPEGMAFIA one of experimental hip hop's most talked-about names. It landed on numerous year-end lists, and Pitchfork later placed it among the best albums of the 2010s.

About the album

JPEGMAFIA recorded around 120 songs for this album and kept 19, which tells you something about his editing. Most of it came together while he was living in Baltimore, and he mixed and mastered it after moving to Los Angeles in 2017, calling the whole thing an exercise in cutting things back.

He produces everything himself, and the beats sound like a hard drive being shaken: noise, glitches, chopped samples and sudden bursts of melody. "1539 N. Calvert" opens with a jolt, "Baby I'm Bleeding" and "Real Nega" became the videos, "Dayum" was edited down from three beats to a minute and a half, and Freaky takes the verse on "Libtard Anthem." "Thug Tears," "Rock N Roll Is Dead" and "Williamsburg" show how much he can pack into a couple of minutes, and "Germs" and "Whole Foods" keep the jolts coming.

The title nods to his years in the US Air Force before music took over. Of the 120 songs, roughly a hundred are presumably still in a drawer somewhere, which is the kind of filing system we can relate to.

Also at Kops: more JPEGMAFIA on vinyl · browse Hip Hop / R&B

Tracklist