Los Angeles-based rapper and producer JPEGMAFIA has shared “TRUST!” as the first single from his upcoming album, due for release later this fall via EQT Recordings and Republic Records.

Alongside the track’s release, he’s also announced a world tour and shared dates for the trek kicking off in the US this October and running through December as well as over a dozen dates in the UK and Europe scheduled for March and April of 2022.

After a seven-month dry spell of new content, rapper JPEGMAFIA came barreling into September with the announcement of an upcoming tour, a forthcoming album and a new single all in one day. The idiosyncratic artist, sometimes referred to as “Peggy” by fans, has three albums and four EPs under his belt already. Yet there never seems to be a dull moment across his entire discography, with new sounds and eccentricities permeating each successive project. Peggy’s newest lead single, “TRUST!,” only cements him as an unpredictable master of genre-bending and blurring. 

The track opens with a bubbling neon beat reminiscent of a classic video game theme. It quickly dissolves into twinkling chimes and metallic pings as Peggy raps about his distrust for the people around him, all the while affirming that he is unbothered and still “looking good” and “feeling nice.” 

It’s a brief and unorthodox approach to the archetypal hater diss track seen elsewhere in hip-hop, but “TRUST!” is in no way Peggy’s most experimental or lyrically charged work, nor is its video game influence altogether unheard of elsewhere in his music.

Older tracks like 2020’s “BALD!,” which samples audio from the 1999 video game Ridge Racer Type 4, or 2017’s “Man Purse” — which samples character snippets from the 1997 game Tekken 3 — inject a special kind of techno dreaminess into his repertoire of hardcore instrumentals and brash lyricism. 

By these standards, “TRUST!” is not necessarily anything new, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable to listen to. It’s an encouraging first look at Peggy’s creative direction for the upcoming album and a testament to his knack for crafting unconventional music and giving no fucks in the process.