Acclaimed JOVM mainstay Thundercat will be releasing his fifth studio album — and first album in over six years — Distracted through Brainfeeder on April 3, 2026. Distracted was created in close collaboration with super producer Greg Kurstin with additional production from Flying Lotus, Kenny Beats and The Lemon Twigs. The new album also features contributions from an all-star cast that includes A$AP Rocky, WILLOW, Tame Impala, Channel Tres, Lil Yachty and a previously unreleased collaboration with Mac Miller. 

Thematically, the album vividly captures the uneasy tension between overstimulation and introspection. Thundercat is deeply skeptical of technological “progress,” especially the way it has narrowed our collective imagination instead of expanding it. He jokes about Star Trek and childhood dreams of space travel, then pivots to the horrible anticlimax of reality: drones without lasers, phones that only feature upgraded cameras, innovation reduced to spying and access. The disappointment isn’t about just gadgets; it’s about a vision of the world we were promised versus what we got right now. Sure, some forms of deep space travel may be difficult, if not impossible, but we don’t have flying cars or smart-alecky robots. We barely have high-speed trains or anything else. 

While the drawbacks of constant distraction are evident in today’s attention deficit economy, a true idiosyncratic like Thundercat can identity the ways in which it used to one’s advantage. You can’t spell “daydreams,” without dreams. “Sometimes you need to be distracted to focus in a different way,” Thundercat says. What the JOVM mainstay wants listeners to take from the album is remarkably, disarmingly simple: “Just enjoy it and have fun and just know that the struggle is real and changes shape, but just to keep pushing forward.” 

Rather than instant and constant commentary, the JOVM mainstay offers something quieter, more radical, and maybe something more empathetic: The permission to be confused, tired and distracted — and yet still make something beautiful and necessary out of the noise. 

Distracted will include the previously released “I Did This To Myself,” feat. Lil Yachty and the album’s latest single “She Knows Too Much,” feat. Mac Miller. Although posthumously released, “She Knows Too Much” captures the two long-time friends and frequent collaborators easy-going, carefree chemistry within their most natural element: Miller spits bars about desperately trying to win over someone, who he knows is out of his league and may be only into him for his fame and money, over a strutting neo-soul arrangement bolstered by Thundercat’s muscular “Superstition“-like bass line and his ethereal falsetto.

While working on Distracted, Thundercat felt it could be a great fit for the album and received permission from the Mac Miller Estate to complete work on the song, which he did with producer Greg Kurstin, adding final touches to the production so fans may now hear the ultimate vision of it. “I’m grateful to have spent my time on this planet with Mac,” Thundercat shares. “What an artist, what a spirit, what a joy to have experienced.”

Directed by Léa Esmaili, the accompanying video employs both claymation and traditional animation to convey the playfulness and the deep bond of their friendship, followed by the reality of loss.

“First of all, making this music video is a huge honor, as I grew up with these two artists and have admired their universe since I was a teenager,” Esmaili says. “I wanted to create, within a single video, a fun animated moment by mixing styles either it’s 2D animation or 3D. Beyond that, I wanted to build a burlesque narrative around two friends who spend a completely crazy day together, tied to their friendship and to anime of this kind.”