JPEGMAFIA, the trickster king of experimental hip hop

It was all a bit much. Especially since there was only one visionary, genre-blending musical alchemist on the lineup that day, and it wasn’t the geriatric crooner with a penchant for smarmy, bloodless ballads and a fetish for Tantric sex (seriously, look that up). No, that title goes to 34-year-old Brooklyn rapper-producer JPEGMAFIA, one of contemporary hip-hop’s most potent disruptors, and probably its most lovable terminally-online weirdo. 

Also read: New on shelves: 4 fresh books to read this week

Ever since his critically acclaimed 2018 sophomore album Veteran, Peggy—as he’s known to his fans—has been at the abrasive, eclectic cutting edge of experimental hip-hop. His compositions are a firestorm of jagged shards of broken sound and implausibly twisted samples, occasionally leavened by moments of staggering melodic beauty. They’re held together at the seams by the sort of charismatic, trickster-God energy that can get a crowd full of Indian indie heads to mosh to an a capella rendition of Carly Rae Jaepsen’s Call Me Maybe, bodies slamming into each other in ironic euphoria. 

Peggy’s mission statement—the musical framework under which he operates—is pithily summed up in the title of his 2023 album with fellow iconoclast Danny Brown, called Scaring The Hoes. He makes gleefully party-killing music, brimming with aggressive swagger and free-wheeling experimentation. It appeals to the type of music nerd who gets handed the aux and immediately puts on Death Grips, delighting in the opportunity to turn a three-beer-buzz into a sonically-induced mindfuck. 

It’s a mission statement he thoroughly lives up to on his fifth studio album I Lay Down My Life For You, which surprise-dropped last Thursday. The record’s 40-minute runtime—spread over 14 tracks—is replete with the ear-bleeding electronics and jaw-dropping sample flips we’ve come to expect from Peggy. But there’s also plenty of new left-field turns—into blissed out chamber folk and stirring 60s psychedelia—as Peggy paints a compelling self-portrait of an artist navigating a deeply corrupt capitalist system, full of vigour and righteous fury, but also weighed down by a loss of faith and a deep awareness of his own flaws. 

“If I was an NBA player I’d be Dillon Brooks but worse," begins the delightfully titled opener i scream this in the mirror before i interact with anyone, Peggy setting the tone with that comparison to American basketball’s enfant terrible. Lurching, beefy guitar riffs and cavernous drums invoke the proletarian menace of 90s rap-rock, a sound that Peggy keeps returning to the album, most notably on the meathead groove-metal of the Method-Man sampling vulgar display of power.

Sin Miedo blends distorted guitar with a down-and-dirty vocal sample from a 2 Live Crew cut, while Vince Staples collaboration New Black History marries cyberpunk glitch with a vocal flip from Future’s 2014 mumble-rap hit Covered n Money. The latter also features the most cutting of the album’s many Drake disses (there’s also plenty of jabs at Freddie Gibbs, whom Peggy beefed with on X/Twitter last year). “I got that flavor, Jonathan Major paper," he raps. “Specially when y'all cashing out for PDFs and rapers (No Drizzy)." 

On Exmilitary, its title a nod to the Death Grips mixtape of the same name, Peggy juxtaposes Booker T. Johnson’s up-tempo, circus-y organ from Wendy Rene’s 1964 track After Laughter—notably sampled by the Wu Tang Clan on their iconic 1993 debut—with bit-crushed guitar, weaving r&b, metal and gangsta rap into a singular, cohesive whole. The track chronicles Peggy’s time in the US Air Force, from which he was honourably discharged after reporting abuse by his seniors, and signals his political stance with rhymes like “Blowing up like I'm IDF, Netty warrants ain't stoppin' shit." It’s a theme he returns to on the menacing Jihad Joe, its title a reference to both his time in the US armed forces and current president Joe Biden. 

If there’s a fault on the first two-thirds of ILDMLFY, it’s the fact that Peggy’s lyrics too often default to pop culture hyper-referencing and empty bravado, with way too many references to Twitter haters and too much time spent implying that his opps were incels and losers. But just as the braggadocio seems to be outliving its welcome, Peggy pivots. 

The last four tracks swerve away from maximalist aggression to tender, soulful introspection, as the rapper unpacks a failed relationship, his mental health troubles, and his own immaturity. The played-up misogyny of some of the earlier rhymes is turned on its head on the Janet Jackson-sampling-closer i recovered from this, as he raps: “Look, my bitch never got taken from me, I lost her myself/ My bitch never got comfort from me, I needed too much help." 

It’s so rare for a rapper, particularly one as prone to shit-post trolling as Peggy, to show such unguarded vulnerability that it hits like a sucker-punch. i recovered from this—and the rest of ILDMLFY—is a testament to the vast emotional range and sonic dynamism that makes JPEGMAFIA one of hip-hop’s most uniquely innovative craftsmen. It’s an album that surprises and challenges you in ways that only the best music can. Once again, JPEGMAFIA delivers a record that’s an easy contender for album-of-the-year lists.

Bhanuj Kappal is a Mumbai-based journalist.

Also read: Why Gautam Seth's workspace looks like an all-white ‘crazy scientist lab’