OZARKIANISM is Pop Hitchcock’s 3rd studio album and his first official release across major music platforms, originally released in 2022. The album went on to accumulate 250,000+ streams on Spotify, becoming one of the defining releases of Pop Hitchcock’s early catalog. More than simply an album, OZARKIANISM is a coming-of-age story about growing up in the Ozarks, friendship, community, psychedelics, artistic expression, and the strange beauty of life in southwest Missouri.

The album is a collaborative project featuring contributions and production from Caleb Keyz / Caleb Trueblood, Toby T, Bleeg, and Xavtimer, bringing together a group of artists who were deeply connected to the same creative community. The project grew naturally from the long conversations and creative sessions between Pop Hitchcock and Caleb Trueblood, longtime collaborators who had already worked together on numerous projects. After years of creating together, the idea emerged to make something that represented the place they came from and the community that shaped them.

Musically, OZARKIANISM is intentionally divided into two distinct sides. One explores angsty, heavy, unorthodox boom bap rap, built around unconventional flows, darker energy, and experimental production. The other moves into a more laid-back world of lo-fi jazz, boom bap, instrumental hip-hop, and warm sample-driven textures. Together, these two sides create a contrast between the aggression and uncertainty of growing up and the quieter, more reflective moments that come with looking back at where you came from.

The album’s instrumentation and production were developed through close collaboration, with Caleb Trueblood and Tristian Upp contributing heavily to the instrumentation and mixing. The album was ultimately mastered by longtime Pop Hitchcock collaborator Caleb Trueblood, helping bring the different sounds and recording environments together into a cohesive final record.

Much of OZARKIANISM was recorded over the course of just four days, when the group spent time creating together at an Airbnb on Table Rock Lake in Branson, Missouri. Away from their normal surroundings, the sessions became an opportunity to spend time together, experiment, write, record, and simply make music. Outside of those sessions, much of the album was completed at The Shed, a prolific studio and creative space in Webb City, Missouri where Caleb Trueblood produced and created music.

The result is an album deeply tied to its environment. OZARKIANISM isn’t an attempt to create a stereotypical representation of the Ozarks. Instead, it documents the experience of actually growing up there — the friendships, strange nights, creative communities, personal struggles, psychedelic experiences, and small moments that become meaningful over time. The album treats the Ozarks as both a physical place and a formative part of the artists’ identities.

At its heart, OZARKIANISM is a coming-of-age record. It captures a particular group of people at a particular point in their lives and turns their experiences into music. The combination of experimental boom bap, lo-fi jazz, psychedelic themes, unconventional rap, and collaborative production creates a record that feels distinctly connected to its time and place.

With 250,000+ Spotify streams, OZARKIANISM stands as an important release in Pop Hitchcock’s discography and an early example of the collaborative, experimental approach that would continue throughout his music career. It is a record about the Ozarks, made by people from the Ozarks, for the community and place that helped shape them.

OZARKIANISM is for listeners interested in underground hip-hop, experimental rap, boom bap, lo-fi hip-hop, jazz rap, psychedelic music, Missouri music, Ozarks music, independent music, alternative hip-hop, and collaborative underground production.