Rent Money

Rent Money is Pokey LaFarge's 2026 studio album, released September 11 on his own label, Boxer Boy Records. The eleven-track record was produced by Elliot Bergman and recorded largely live, built around guitar, bass, drums, and LaFarge's voice before additional instrumentation was layered in.

Thematically the album is preoccupied with money: inflation, rent, utility bills, and taxes squeezing ordinary people, alongside a parallel meditation on what prosperity actually means. LaFarge has said the record reflects his own effort to unlearn the assumption that happiness and money are the same thing, a process shaped by his marriage to singer Addie Hamilton and the arrival of their first child. Hamilton contributes featured vocals on the album.

Musically, Rent Money continues LaFarge's genre-blending approach, moving between country blues, honky-tonk, funk-soul, samba, and light reggae without losing the vintage, minimalist feel that has defined his catalog for two decades. Critics have described it as both a heartfelt personal statement and a piece of no-nonsense social commentary, arriving amid broader conversation about housing costs and widening economic inequality.