Goodbye, Jelly Roll: Lexington mural of singer is being replaced
The highly talked-about Jelly Roll mural in Lexington has been covered up, but its replacement is months away from being unveiled.
When Jelly Roll performed in to a sold out crowd at Rupp Arena in 2023, a promotional mural of the singer was painted on the side of Record Nations on South Broadway.
But the mural of him stuck around, even after the performer visited Lexington a second time for the Railbird Music Festival in 2025. His face watched traffic pass by on South Broadway for nearly three years before being painted over this week.
“So the mural that was here previously, I think it was intended just to be a promotional mural for that specific festival when he was in town, and then was just never rotated,” said Alexandra Pangburn, a local muralist and founder of Babe Walls, who is working on the new mural.
The Jelly Roll mural did not receive entirely the same reaction as the singer, and when it was covered up this July, many were happy to see it go.
The current work underway is a promotional piece for the upcoming 15th annual PRHBTN art festival. The wall will display the text “PRHBTN is real — new murals this October 9-18,” Pangburn said.
“This will ride for about two months,” Pangburn, a co-organizer for the event said. “We’re doing this is to help promote the Kickstarter, as we’ve raised half our funds already, and so we’re hoping that the public will come through and help us raise the other half.”
The festival focuses on “art for the masses” and is credited with the installation of over 40 murals in Lexington. This October, four more murals will be finished, and besides watching the murals go up, there will be events for the public to attend, said Pangburn.
“The idea is that the mural will stay up for about 10 years,” said Geoff Murphy, local artist and co-organizer for the event, also working on the promotional mural.
The site at Record Nation will become home to art by a Louisville-based artist, though their name has not been released. The other murals will feature work by two national and one international artist, said Pangburn.
