GDP has shared “Mezzanine,” the final single from his upcoming album Cross Off Matthew. The New Jersey rapper’s first proper solo record in more than a decade arrives this Friday, October 23, via Run For Cover Records.
A Sampler, A Flute, and a “My Way” Anthem
On the production side, “Mezzanine” is pure GDP. The rapper and producer built the beat using a Roland 404 sampler and an old Japanese flute record, fusing dusty crate-digging with the off-kilter swing that has defined his sound since the late 2000s. It is the third single to surface from Cross Off Matthew, and it plays like a thesis statement: weathered, defiant, and completely self-assured.
According to The Line of Best Fit, GDP said the track picks up where “Island in the Sky,” his previous single, left off, and was written “in the tradition of ‘My Way’ anthems. Frank Sinatra mostly but Usher, Fetty Wap, Limp Bizkit all did their thing too.” It is a lineage that tells you everything about how GDP hears music. He is not mapping himself onto one tradition. He is claiming all of them at once, the crooner, the R&B hitmaker, the melodic trap star, and the rap-rock survivor, and folding them into a boom-bap frame only he could build.
That magpie instinct has always separated him from the pack. While the underground tends to reward purity, GDP rewards curiosity. “Mezzanine” sounds like a man who has lived several musical lives and finally decided to let them all talk at once.
A Video Shot Where His Childhood Home Burned
The official video, directed by filmmaker Tyler Harrison, was shot at GDP’s childhood home, which caught fire earlier this year. Instead of turning away from the wreckage, he put a camera inside it.
In a statement about the record, GDP said: “Wading through the literal debris of a past life seemed like a worthwhile metaphor for change, for acknowledging the past but not living in it, for embracing what we can and cannot control all the same.” It is a heavy line, and it lands harder when you know the footage was captured in the actual aftermath. The video does not aestheticize the damage. It sits with it, the way the song sits with the long silence between albums.
There is a discipline in that choice. A lot of comeback narratives lean on spectacle. GDP’s version is quieter. He is literally walking through what the last decade left behind, picking through the debris on camera, and deciding what to carry forward.
The Long Road to Cross Off Matthew
Cross Off Matthew is GDP’s first proper solo album since 2013’s Holla, and it is entirely self-produced. That last detail matters. In an era when even underground records are assembled by committee, GDP made all twelve tracks himself: “Another Country,” “Seroquel,” “Island in the Sky,” “Mezzanine,” “Holstein,” “Location Therapy,” “Bipped,” “Undone,” “Rock for Light,” “Money for Nothing,” “Ethereal Sphere,” and “Doom Loop.”
He returned to the GDP name in 2025 with ENDOCRINE, a collaborative mini album with Fatboi Sharif, but Cross Off Matthew is the true reintroduction, and an expansion of what made his cult following form in the first place. The YouTube description for the “Mezzanine” video frames it exactly that way: his first solo album in over a decade, playing like a reintroduction as much as a continuation.
The sequencing tells its own story. “Island in the Sky” opened the rollout, and “Mezzanine” closes it, the song GDP chose to hand listeners right before the full record lands. If the album plays the way these singles suggest, Cross Off Matthew is not a victory lap. It is a reckoning with everything in between.
The DIY Ethos Behind the Name
Understanding the wait means understanding where GDP comes from. The New Jersey born emcee and producer came up in the overlapping punk and hardcore, hip-hop, and skateboard communities of New Jersey and New York. He cultivated a deliberately punk ethos for his brand of neo boom bap, choosing to release on labels like Run For Cover and Ride the Fury Records rather than more traditional hip-hop outlets.
Early records like 2009’s Realistic Expectations and 2011’s Useless Eaters celebrated youthful indiscretion while hinting at the old soul underneath. Coupled with a relentless DIY touring schedule, they built him a devoted fanbase through the early 2010s, the kind of following that buys vinyl, shows up early, and never really leaves.
As that following grew, so did the pressures of making ends meet as an independent artist. Feeling trapped by his own ambitions and in need of a new outlet, GDP turned to film and photography to scratch the creative itch. He published zines and books, shot and directed video projects under the pseudonym George Douglas Peterson, and even found his way into global health work, documenting medical missions to some of the most vulnerable regions in the world. Through it all he kept music close: sporadic collaborations with peers, drums in the hardcore punk band Ankle Monitor, and an electronic grindcore solo project called Orange Crystal.
That is the context for the debris in the “Mezzanine” video. GDP did not spend thirteen years idle. He spent them living, and Cross Off Matthew is what that living sounds like when it finally gets a beat.
Tour Dates and the Release Show
GDP is not letting the record arrive quietly. He plays a record release show at Crossroads in Garwood, New Jersey on October 25, two days after the album drops. Then he heads to Australia for an extensive headline run with special guest Slim Krusty, hitting Hobart, Franklin, Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane, Toowoomba, the Gold Coast, Sydney, and Mt Gambier, starting November 12 at Grinners Dive Bar in Hobart and wrapping November 29 at The Pantry in Mt Gambier.
Stateside fans get one more shot this year at Amityville Music Hall on Long Island on December 19. No UK dates have been announced yet, though with this kind of momentum, do not be surprised if that changes. Pre-save links and vinyl pre-orders are live now through the album’s official site.
For a rapper who took the long way back, the schedule feels right: a hometown release show, a month across Australia, and a record that took more than a decade to make. Cross Off Matthew is out Friday. “Mezzanine” is the proof he was worth waiting for.
