Bonnaroo 2025 Artist Spotlight: JPEGMAFIA

Like we’ve been doing for many years now, we’re making it our mission to help you get acquainted with many of our favorite acts from Bonnaroo‘s 2025 lineup. A festival that feels like it’s ever evolving (especially with some big tweaks and improvements in the past few summers post-pandemic), this year marks Bonnaroo’s 22nd installment (and 24th anniversary), boasting not only another great and varied lineup, but also some exciting additions like the brand new, high-tech Infinity Stage, billed as “the world’s largest 360-degree, immersive sound experience” and unlike anything that’s ever been showcased in North America. Back once again in its usual June 12-15 timeframe, we’re counting down the days until another great weekend on the farm.

As we dig through the entire schedule, we’ll highlight a spread of performers spanning across genres and stages, big and small, new and old, to bring you some of the most interesting, lesser-known, and most highly-recommended among this year’s crop of artists. And as our time at ‘Roo approaches, we’ll also be bringing you some special features and full list-style daily lineup guides, to help you plan your weekend ahead of the fest. While these previews won’t span every artist, and might omit some more obvious must-see acts, we hope they’ll serve as a way to help you navigate Bonnaroo’s gargantuan lineup, and to make the most of your busy weekend at the fest!

We’re told tickets are very low and on track to sell out, so grab those right here if you haven’t already (and don’t forget the camping or parking pass), and read on for our Bonnaroo Artist Spotlight!

LEARN

Born in Brooklyn to Jamaican parents, Barrington DeVaughn Hendricks, better known as the rapper JPEGMAFIA, spent his childhood in New York, before the culture shock of relocating to Alabama at 13, where he experienced an intense level of racism, which would would inform his worldview and later shape the thematic focus on his music. At 18, Hendricks enlisted in the Air Force, and was deployed around the world, where he was influenced in part by each new culture he was exposed to. Though his interest in music and production began as a teen, and he had been experimenting with off-kilter beats, which he rapped over under various aliases on a smattering of early mixtapes, it was after relocating to Baltimore in 2015, experiencing and impacted by the Freddie Gray protests firsthand, where both the name and the fiery socio-political focus of JPEGMAFIA was born. After a pair of 2015 mixtapes, Communist Slow Jams and Darkskin Manson, Peggy dropped his experimental, politically-charged debut full-length Black Ben Carson in 2016, which generated some positive early buzz. It was 2018 followup Veteran, however, which JPEG dropped after relocating to his now-home of Los Angeles, which really proved to be the rapper’s breakthrough, earning rapturous critical acclaim, and considered one of the best hip hop records of the last decade. Tackling thoughtful, topical, biting, charged, darkly humorous, and challenging lyrical themes over experimental, unorthodox, glitchy production, which draws influence from trap, industrial, noise, R&B, punk, and rock, JPEGMAFIA has become one of the most celebrated and interesting figures in alternative hip hop, earning universal acclaim once more for 2019’s All My Heroes Are Cornballs. The following years would see some Covid-era EPs- EP! and EP!2– and well as fourth album LP!, in 2021. Teaming up with fellow acclaimed alternative rapper Danny Brown, the pair released a joint LP Scaring the Hoes in 2023 (and are teasing a forthcoming Vol. 2), before Peggy returned with his long-awaited fifth album, I Lay Down My Life for You, last year; a rock-rooted, chronically online, guest-heavy, and sonically-biting distillation of everything the multifaceted artist has made over the last decade. Though hardly obscure at this point, JPEGMAFIA still feels like a rapper who’s underrated, regularly crafting more substantive, interesting, and timeless music than where hip hop currently is at the mainstream. Live, he’s a force to be recounted with too, and is a perfect choice for late night vibes at Bonnaroo. With the exception of headliner Tyler, the Creator, this year’s lineup is a little light on hip hop, which should make this set all the more essential.