Ooh Rap I Ya

On October 7, 2021, Clanton released the single "Fucking Up My Life" ahead of his 2021 headlining tour, featuring his partner and 100% Electronica co-founder Negative Gemini. This was his first solo material released since 2018's Slide, and he announced along with the single that he was working on his third studio album for release sometime the following year. Clanton had already been working on the album for the past two years, and chose to release the song before the tour as it "was written to go off live".[2][3] Over a year later, on April 7, 2023, Clanton debuted the follow-up single "I Been Young" as a music video on the 100% Electronica Big Stream VR livestream.[4][5] A third single, "Justify Your Life", was debuted in similar fashion on May 26.[6] Alongside it, Clanton's third album was announced to be titled Ooh Rap I Ya, set for a July 28 release the same year. Pre-orders for the album went live on the 100% Electronica website that same day along with a track list for the album, with it featuring all the previously released singles.[7][8] The album also was announced to feature Australian singer Hatchie, who Clanton had previously remixed the song "The Rhythm" for on the deluxe edition of her album Giving The World Away earlier that year.[9] On June 30, Clanton released the fourth and final single, "Vapor King / SubReal".[10]

Clanton stated that the first single, "Fucking Up My Life" was written as a "love letter to performing live",[3] while he called "Justify Your Life" an "attempt at making Grown Up Music about self-realization".[8] Journalists noted that it and the two follow-up singles featured heavy influence from 90s trip hop and radio pop.[7][8] Clanton rebuked this by saying that the "90s pastiche" was not his intention, and that the music was merely a continuation of "the style and thoughts [he] developed on [his] last full length Slide",[7] although he did admit in another statement that he was "stylistically indebted" to 90s acts like Savage Garden and Seal.[4]

In a review for Pitchfork, Sam Goldner negatively compared the album to Clanton's previous projects, saying that it "struggles to find new or better ways to make the pieces fit". He gave praise to the singles from the album, calling "I Been Young" a "best-case scenario", while calling the latter half of the album "hard not to tune out" due to repetitive use of similar drum samples and later songs incorporating "sing-songy chanting".[11]

Note

• ^{^[a]} On streaming versions of the album, Vapor King and SubReal are combined as one track called "Vapor King/SubReal", reducing the total track count to 9. The combined track is identical in content and length.

• George Clanton – performance, mixing, recording
• Howie Weinberg – mastering