After leaving the US Air Force and a creatively influential stint living and making music in Baltimore, Barrington Hendricks recently moved west to take up residence in LA. Known as JPEGMAFIA, JPEG or Peggy, Hendricks already has four albums of provocative writing and bedroom production to his name. His latest,Veteran, is released by Deathbomb Arc.

Hendricks sent a statement about his most recent work via email: “The name is a double meaning” says Hendricks. ”Veteran: meaning I’ve been making music for a long time. Since I was 14. And the literal meaning. I served in US military. I had this album name in my head for so many years. Releasing it into the world feels like I just put my kids up for adoption. This album is fucking horrible. No I’m kidding. But making an album for me is hectic. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have my hand in everything because it becomes so demanding. The beats, the words, the mixing, mastering, I do it all myself, so by the time it comes out in public I’m usually kind of detached from it because I’ve heard it so many times. But with Veteran the replay value remains high for me. It’s the most me album I’ve ever made. I’m always making music so I never sit down and craft an album from scratch like Brian Wilson or some shit. But Veteran is about as close as I’m gonna get to doing that. It's a snapshot my random thoughts on everyday life in a country ruled by a man that is the same color as Frank Ocean's first album. It’s a snapshot of an artist living in a time where people can make more money talking about me than I can being me. I don’t know how things got this way. But they are this way and this album is how it feels to live through it. At least to me it is.”

JPEGMAFIA's The Second Amendment was reviewed in The Wire 395. Subscribers can read the review via the online archive.