Scaring the Hoes

JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown

When I heard that these two were collaborating together, I knew I needed to hear this album. I'm such a huge fan of Danny Brown given that he is such a unique personality. He's silly, introspective, and honestly quite fearless when it comes to his production choices. He's got a few really solid projects under his belt and is behind some of my all-time favourite rap songs. My feelings toward JPEGMAFIA are a little more complicated. I also think he's a very unique artist and performer who has boundless energy, creativity, and a personality that I can't help but gravitate to. Despite my tremendous amount of respect for Peggy though, I have yet to really love an entire project of his. His self-indulgence and nihilistic tendencies can sometimes lead to bigger distractions than escapes. Regardless, we have two artists that are almost kindred spirits in a way, and I knew that whatever the two came up with was going to be wild.

In a word, Scaring the Hoes is definitely wild. Peggy does not change up his production style whatsoever, nor should he with an artist like Danny Brown, who oddly feels comfortable in the most uncomfortable of places. Peggy produces some real winners on here. Lean Beef Patty first introduces us to a sped-up, almost nightcore rendition of a P. Diddy song before unexpectedly dropping us into a nasty, distorted set of kicks and hyper compressed claps. The beat and the fantastic synth melody nearly swallows the instrumental, but you can still hear the disorienting swirling of that sped up sample filling in the spaces in between. Garbage Pale Kids has a really obscure sample from a Japanese commercial that lifts some glassy, clinking percussion, and children chants that are accompanied but some pretty hefty low end rumble. Fentanyl Tester sounds quite futuristic with its busy drums and synths and Burfict! features some very epic horns from Richard Smallwood that scream 'Sunday Night Football.'

The beat Peggy supplies for Danny Brown on Shut Yo Bitch Ass Up has to be a top contender for the best beat on here. It is one of the most belaboured instrumentals of the bunch and I love every element of it, especially the knocking kick pattern, the agile and pitch-shifting synth work, the dramatic synth pad chords that fill in the background, and of course that very confrontational vocal sample that the song derives its name from. As technically astounding as that beat is though, I think my favourite has to be Kingdom Hearts Key thanks to its blissful, The Vision of Escaflowne sample. There's a few cool details added like the time stretching and stuttering, but really this one stands out to me just by virtue of being a relatively calming and tranquil instrumental in a sea of hostile and bludgeoning beats.

When it comes to the performances, I feel like I don't really need to go into detail. We already know that when you see the names JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown, you can expect incredibly aggressive and animated deliveries, and this album is no exception. The problem though, and this is kind of a big problem, is that the substance of their verses is often obscured for a number of technical reasons that sadly have nothing to do with Peggy or Brown's capabilities as rappers. If you've been following the buzz online, you've no doubt heard takes flying around about how the mixing is, to put it kindly, rather rough. Well those takes are pretty spot on. You can say it's an artistic or stylistic choice, however, upon hearing drowned out vocals, it's hard to come to any other conclusion. Especially since we're talking about rap music here, the vocals are objectively the most important element.

Nearly every beat has some element that overtakes the vocals, whether it be the overblown bass in Lean Beef Patty, the searing synths in Steppa Pig, or the sample as a whole. On JPEGMAFIA's last project, I commented that the instrumental for Hazard Duty Pay (if I remember correctly) had a vocal-heavy sample that was far too distracting. Here, we have two similar instances of this happening (Orange Juice Jones and God Loves You). These instrumentals, as impressive as they are, simply have not been tailored to provide a pocket for Peggy and Brown's voice to cut. I would say Peggy has a little more success cutting in his tracks, which should come as no surprise given that he already has experience mixing his vocals into his guerrilla beats, but poor Danny. His vocals sound so thin, sounding like he is barely managing to keep his head above water. Maybe this is an indication that Peggy still has a lot of room to grow on a more technical (meaning production, engineering, mixing) end. Run the Jewels is perhaps the only time Brown actually sounds both good and audible. His vocals are double tracked and feel quite wide in the mix, allowing you to really feel his presence.

The vocals are a bit of a bummer, but if we're just going by sound, this record was still very entertaining and enjoyable. This album proved what we already knew, that is, JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown make for a raucous tag-team. In some places, I'm seeing this being referred to as Scaring the Hoes Vol. 1. If that's an indication that there is more to come, then that's certainly a reason to get excited for the duo's future. Should there be a follow-up, I would really like to see JPEGMAFIA exercise his producer muscles and better tailor his beats so that he and (more so) Danny Brown have a better pocket to deliver their memorable, witty, and aggressive lines. Maybe it was rushed, maybe it lacked a critical ear, or maybe this is exactly what the two intended it to sound like, in which case, it doesn't wholly align with my tastes. I think JPEGMAFIA has been on a bit of an upward trend, and I've been enjoying more of his music as of late so I have strong beliefs that whatever he does next will be better. As for Danny Brown, it feels like a privilege to hear him on record as he is seemingly tied up with the release of his highly-anticipated Quaranta.