Just yesterday, JPEGMAFIA announced his new album Experimental Rap. Already, his rollout campaign has become contentious, seemingly by design. Peggy recently did a Pigeons & Planes interview, and the whole thing isn’t up online yet. But in an advance clip, Peggy explains why he chose the Experimental Rap title.
I just wanted to lay claim to something that I already have. I’m already the best in this space of experimental rap. There is no one who competes with me. There’s no one who does what I do. I’m not copied. I don’t have any type beats. It’s not because people don’t like me. It’s because people cannot do what I do. So me naming it Experimental Rap is just me laying claim to something I already had.
People act like experimental rap and experimental hip-hop is some kind of dirty word. It’s associated with the dirtiest people. It’s not fun. The things that people lust for in rap — something different, something new — I’ve been doing it. And now that we’re in a space where people maybe want that more, I just need to lay claim to it because nobody else is. And by the time they figure out that this is something beautiful and not icky, I want it to be too late.
Other people in this genre, they want to pretend and try to be cool and try to pretend, like, “Oh, I want to be over here, I don’t want to be experimental rap. I want to be something else. I wanna fuckin’ rap like Lucki. I want to do this. I want to make songs like the young people make.” I’m not having a midlife crisis musically, so I don’t really need to do that. I can just be myself because I’ve always been myself and I let other people try to figure out who they are at 40 or whatever.
In that clip, Peggy didn’t mention any of his supposed experimental rap peers by name, but his “other people in the genre” callouts were specific enough that one particular person got the message. In the comments of Pigeons & Planes’ Instagram video, Earl Sweatshirt took shots right back at Peggy:
lmao leave me alone pls i make music with my Friends that i have (derogatory)
nobody copies cuh because his music is gnarled rough and ugly (derogatory)
There were a bunch of crying emojis in there, too.
Earl Sweatshirt disses JPEGMAFIA after he called out other “experimental rappers,” which fans widely believed was aimed at Earl ?
“lmao leave me alone pls i make music with my Friends that i have (derogatory)”
“nobody copies cuh because his music is gnarled rough and ugly… pic.twitter.com/PFCVZW8ZiJ
— Kurrco (@Kurrco) May 1, 2026
In those same Instagram comments, Peggy responded to the response:
1st of N***a your career is gnarled and rough, you the first n***a since joe budden to go back underground literally. 2nd stop saying “cuh” your 32 and you went to boarding school. 3rd neither you nor your friends would Ever say none of this to my face. But Thank you for the promo little guy.
But wait, there’s more! Here’s Earl’s response to the response to the response:
you know what bro my fault i misspoke. bro is the king of making crunchy ass music and wearing muay thai shorts, super excited for the album brother (positive) seems like it’s gonna be really experimental
i fw the new leather vibe 2 twin shit hard
In the spirit of sarcastic reconciliation, JPEGMAFIA wrote, “Thank you cuh. And tell Jasper thanks for letting me borrow his hoes (derogatory).” Jasper Dolphin, Earl’s fellow former Odd Future member, had also jumped into the Instagram comments, posting a gif of Morpheus from The Matrix.
Earl had more to say on his Instagram story.
Last year, JPEGMAFIA did bring up Earl Sweatshirt’s name during a Billboard interview. He was talking about how people always hate what he’s doing but then want him to do more of it, and Billboard’s Mackenzie Cummings-Grady theorized that it’s “a risk-taker type thing.” Peggy’s response:
I am a risk-taker! I’m one of the only risk-takers in rap! The rest of these motherfuckers literally do the same thing. Alchemist, Earl, and them? They’ve been making the same fucking song for the last twenty fucking years. Nobody gives a shit. I’m not them. I’m here to evolve, go farther, go harder and I’m gonna do my shit. I’m not here to give people the bare minimum and have that just be okay, n***a. That’s not me. I’m not wasting my potential like those motherfuckers. I’m not like that. I’m maximizing my shit. I’m 35 years old — and Tupac said when Black men turn 30, they lose their fire. I have no loss of fire. I’m hot as shit.
These other motherfuckers, whatever. Y’all go do that boring ass shit. I’m not with that. I’m here to take this shit forward whether y’all like it or not; y’all can kiss my Black ass. And they’re gonna pretend like I’m not doing what I’m doing, but I’ve been doing it! And I’ve been doing it so well that people have to hate. They try to take the title from me, and they just can’t because it’s me. You can’t imitate me. I’m me, it came from my brain. Keep imitating Earl and making hyperpop songs, whatever the fuck these n***as is doing. I’m gonna be doing my thing like I’ve been doing ’cause clearly something is working.
JPEGMAFIA has a past history of popping off on his peers; he’s got a long-simmering feud with Freddie Gibbs still going. It seems unlikely that some Instagram comments will be the end of his issues with Earl Sweatshirt.
On Reddit, someone already called this “Kendrick Lamar vs Drake for Letterboxd users.” I thought that was pretty funny.