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On Tuesday, June 10, Billboard published an exclusive interview with JPEGMAFIA, aka Barrington DeVaughn Hendricks, which was conducted following his performance at the 2025 Governor's Ball last weekend (June 6-8).
When Hendricks was asked about his thoughts on the future of rap and its fusion with hardcore music, the rapper said that people yearned "for something new" in the genre, elaborating,
"We don’t wanna hear Drake complain about b***hes anymore. We don’t f**king care, he’s 40. We need something different. I’m here to try to provide and cultivate that as much as I can because rap fans are f**king bored. Their idea of doing something different is taking different sounding sh*t and throwing trap drums on it."
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Further highlighting how his idea of creating something different in the rap genre was different from others, JPEGMAFIA added,
"I’m here to really f**k you up. You get what I’m saying? And If I’m not, I did not do my f**king job. Conscious rap has Nas, trap rap has Future, experimental rap is me. That’s it."
According to Last FM, JPEGMAFIA - born Barrington DeVaughn Hendricks - was born and raised in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and has Jamaican parentage. When Hendricks was 18, he moved to Louisiana, where he enlisted in the United States Air Force.
As an Air Force personnel, Hendricks served in an Iraq tour, and later spent time in Japan, Germany, Kuwait, and North Africa, before his honorable discharge from the service.
In 2015, Hendricks moved to Baltimore, where he released his first mixtape, Communist Slow Jams, under the moniker JPEGMAFIA. A month later, in May 2015, Barrington dropped his second mixtape, Darkskin Manson, which was inspired by Freddie Gray's protest.
Since then, the rapper has dropped five studio albums, starting with Black Ben Carson in 2016, followed by:
- Veteran - 2018
- All My Heroes Are Cornballs - 2019
- LP! - 2021
- Scaring the Hoes with Danny Brown - 2023
- I Lay Down My Life for You - 2024
JPEGMAFIA spoke about the importance of live performance in his Billboard interview
Elsewhere in his Billboard interview, JPEGMAFIA was asked how important live performances were to him. The Rainbow Six rapper responded by claiming he always knew that being a good live performer would make him "stand out," adding,
"I came from the hardcore scene in Baltimore so I was used to that kinda sh*t. I’m always gonna have my energy, I’m always gonna do that but it’s not enough to carry you on forever. Eventually you got to, like, do some sh*t that’s interesting."
Hendricks also went on to compare his set in the Governor's Ball to that of Batman Returns, with light and fog surrounding the podium.
The Governor's Ball wrapped up Sunday, June 8, with Hozier and Glass Animals headlining its final show.
Besides JPEGMAFIA, the other artists who performed at the Governor's Ball on Friday, June 5, include The Beaches, Tyla, Matt Champion, Role Model, T-Pain, Jean Dawson, and Dogpark, among others. The headliners of the event were Tyler, the Creator, and Benson Boone.
