James Ferraro (born November 7, 1986) is an American experimental musician, producer, composer, and contemporary artist. He has been credited as a pioneer of the 21st century genres hypnagogic pop and vaporwave, with his work exploring themes related to hyperreality and consumer culture. His music has drawn on diverse styles such as 1980s electronic music, new age, drone, lo-fi, sound collage, and R&B.

Ferraro began his career in the early 2000s as a member of the Californian noise duo The Skaters, after which he began recording solo work under his name and a wide variety of aliases. He released music on labels such as Hippos in Tanks and New Age Tapes. Ferraro received wider recognition when his polarizing 2011 album Far Side Virtual was chosen as Album of the Year by The Wire. He has since pivoted to releasing projects independently.

Ferraro was born in Rochester, New York, to Italian and African-American parents. He came from a musical background; his father was a musician, DJ, and record enthusiast, while his mother was a singer. He began making instrumentals in high school with the program MTV Music Generator (1999). When Ferraro was 18, he moved from New York to San Diego, California, where he met Spencer Clark. He explained that "we had this conversation and it ended with us collaborating on visual art and paintings and stuff together."

When Ferraro was 20, he formed a drone noise music project with Clark called The Skaters, and the two recorded music for a year under the moniker. After a year of recording, they began touring around the country and issued releases from that year of recording. Physicalities Of The Sensibilities Of Ingrediential Stairways (2008), issued on Eclipse Records, was the last record released by The Skaters.

Ferraro started the label New Age Tapes to release his own solo work; his early solo material was often released under myriad pseudonyms such as Lamborghini Crystal and Teotihuacan and was often distributed as limited cassettes or CD-Rs, although some LPs, such as Clear (2008) and Last American Hero (2008), were released through labels such as Holy Mountain Records and Olde English Spelling Bee. According to AllMusic's Paul Simpson, these early recordings "explored everything from gamelan to drone to lo-fi Casio pop" and were associated with the 2000s "hypnagogic pop" trend by the media. Around 2010, Ferraro's music developed an eccentric pop style on releases such as the high-school themed Night Dolls with Hairspray (2010). He also collaborated on the 2011 RVNG ambient album collaboration FRKWYS 7 with Daniel Lopatin, David Borden, Laurel Halo, and Sam Godin.

With the release of his polarizing 2011 album Far Side Virtual on Hippos in Tanks, Ferraro's work abruptly embraced MIDI music technology and corporate Muzak. Beginning as a series of ringtones, the album was met with both praise and derision from critics and was named Album of the Year by UK music magazine The Wire; it was described as "providing a postmodern critique on consumer culture, retro-futurism, and hyperreality", and along with Lopatin's Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1 would go on to influence the 2010s music genre vaporwave, which explored similar themes. In 2012, Ferraro performed at Primavera Sound. Following the release of Far Side Virtual, Ferraro's work became increasingly influenced by contemporary hip hop and R&B, as seen on albums such as Sushi (2012), NYC, Hell 3:00 AM (2013), and Skid Row (2015). He also released digital downloads under aliases such as Bebetune$ and Bodyguard. His 2016 album Human Story 3 returned to themes explored on Far Side Virtual.

In August 2017, Ferraro's multimedia art exhibition Extinction Renaissance premiered at the Loyal Gallery in Stockholm, Sweden. Ferraro also released a limited edition musical piece, 'Anthrospray: Music for Extinction Renaissance', on USB credit cards through the Loyal Gallery's website. On November 26, 2017, Ferraro digitally released Troll, a five-track EP. In February 2018, Ferraro officially premiered Plague, an opera with scenography by Nate Boyce, at the 2018 transmediale festival. The work starred German actor Christoph Schüchner as an "undead" Steve Jobs, "the surrogate of a deranged AI, a data mongrel comprised of all our networked activity", and also featured chorales by PHØNIX16. On May 18, 2018, Ferraro digitally released Four Pieces for Mirai, an EP working as the first part of and the prologue to the project of the same name. Ferraro was featured and interviewed on the cover of the 416th issue of The Wire in October 2018.

In 2025, Ferraro and Bladee's single-player virtual world project Sanctuary was unveiled through Microsoft and TBA Agency's generative artificial intelligence showcase Artifacts.