“Slide in the party like three monkeys wearing a trench,” GDP says in the opening seconds of Cross Off Matthew, his first solo album in 13 years. The line is  indicative of the New Jersey rapper/producer’s roller-coaster relationship with music, one that’s ebbed and flowed throughout his career and eclectic discography. Entirely self-produced, Cross Off Matthew feels like a culmination of what’s come before and a welcoming reintroduction to what makes the cult rapper so beloved, but sometimes the only thing scarier than what’s changed in life is what hasn’t.

GDP–aka Matthew Miller–came up in the punk, hardcore, and skateboarding underground of New Jersey, and those roots inspired his DIY approach to making hip-hop. Easier access to amateur recording technology inspired Miller to start recording songs on his own and he applied a punk intuition to his kaleidoscopic brand of neo-boom bap on early releases like 2009’s Realistic Expectations and 2011’s Useless Eaters. Those albums celebrated his youthful indiscretions but also signaled an old soul lying beneath the surface, and he opted to release them on punk/indie labels (including Run For Cover and Ride The Fury Records) instead of more traditionally hip-hop outlets. This along with an ambitious touring schedule soon helped him carve out a dedicated fanbase throughout the early 2010s. “There wasn’t much of an archetype for the sarcastic skateboarding white rapper punk guy,” Miller recalls, “but I didn’t care.”

GDP began to build a cult following but his personal tolerance faded quickly, and the project he’d started as an 18-year-old had lost its luster by the time he hit his mid-20s. Making ends meet as an independent artist in New York City had become prohibitive, he was losing friends and collaborators to drug issues, and he could even feel the pressure creatively. “I remember sitting in a studio by myself and trying to come up with stuff and I felt trapped,” Miller explains. “It was like I was in solitary confinement. I didn’t really feel like anybody cared. I asked myself ‘I should go do something else, right?’”

Miller decided to step back from pursuing GDP full-time and ventured into film and photography work under the pseudonym George Douglas Peterson, exploring new mediums in an effort toe scratch his creative itch. He published zines and photobooks, directed music videos during COVID, and even co-found the global health non-profit *CITE THE NAME* which focused on medical missions in some of the most impoverished regions of the world. But Miller always kept music close, whether playing drums in hardcore upstarts, Ankle Monitor, or combining grindcore and freestyle with his side project, Orange Crystal. During the peak of COVID Miller began working with fellow NJ-bred wordsmith Fatboi Sharif and eventually the two released a collaborative album, ENDOCRINE, on steel tipped dove’s Fused Arrow Records in 2025. The project led to Miller experimenting with more ideas and he quietly began to claw his way back to GDP with renewed purpose and passion.

Cross Off Matthew is that slow-cooked labor of love, born out of Miller taking enough time away from rap to understand his journey with new perspective and appreciation. “I’m older and arguably wiser, but that creative fire stayed with me the whole time,” he says. “I just wanted to make something that felt nuanced, something that I could feel proud of.” Throughout the album Miller’s beats toggle between foreboding and facetious just as deftly as his bars. Tracks like “Island In The Sky” and “Location Therapy” make rap confetti out of cutting guitars and harsh distortion, while “Seroquel” or “Rock For Light,” (the latter a nod to NJ rap royalty, The Outsidaz) embrace GDP’s signature blend of East Coast hip-hop and punk sensibilities, with lyrics that highlight the sharp wit and heady philosophizing that he made his name on. Miller examines addiction, vices, interpersonal relationships, the ever-deteriorating circumstances of life in late-stage capitalism, and the pitfalls of trying to lead a creative life throughout it all. The old soul that peaked out from beneath the surface of his early releases has now come to the forefront, and GDP’s trademark humor and commentary feel refined by years of life experience.

It all comes to a head on otherworldly closer “Doom Loop” where Miller interrogates his own motivations for making music. His insecurities and frustrations are laid bare as he describes how pursuing your passion doesn’t always align with a stable life. It’s a startling level of emotional clarity, contextualizing not only the album’s worth of songs that preceded it, but also GDP’s entire output to this point. If the 13 year wait hadn’t already made it clear, new GDP music is nothing to take for granted.