EP!

JPEGMAFIA

Last year, JPEGMAFIA treated us by spontaneously releasing track after track; which would later all be compiled on to EP!. Although, with nine tracks, it is almost a full-length album. Now I don't want to assume whether Peggy put the same level of quality control into these songs as he does his albums, but with how spontaneously he released them, especially with the modestly self-produced visuals, I get the sense that this was more of a creative outlet for Peggy to just go off the cuff and not really sweat the finer details. Regardless, there are still some great songs on here. BALD!, and its remix, has an awesome sample that is really catchy and features great, aggressive verses from both Peggy and Denzel Curry. Another incredible track is CUTIE PIE!. The instrumental is pretty minimal, boom-bap drums and some pretty heavy bass, but it's Peggy's verse that absolutely kills. His delivery is a little more downplayed compared to what you typically here from him, but the flows and the rhymes are so smooth. I love the end of his first verse where Peggy flaunts his independence in the music industry; calling out fellow artists who sign raw deals and don't even own what they write. It's a pretty strong flex.

ROUGH 7 was another pretty good track thanks to its strong instrumental. At points a piano line will pop up that feels really familiar, although tough to pin-point exactly why. It sounds like it could come from a Final Fantasy game that was released on the SNES and since Peggy also included a voice clip from Navi (Ocarina of Time), I feel like I could be on the right track. Tommy Genesis delivers a pretty hilarious verse that caps off with a pretty manic scream and Peggy, again, continues to do that which he does so incredibly well. The last track I'll mention is BODYGUARD! which shows the more tender side of Peggy. The instrumental has these really nice electric pianos, slightly modulated to make it a little more ear-grabbing and Peggy's auto-crooning is pretty great.

As for the rest of the tracks, I thought they were okay. Peggy came with some pretty great lyrics and deliveries as he typically does, but I wasn't so much feeling the instrumentals. Even though I wasn't totally enamored with every song in this collection, I think it was a pretty cool way for JPEGMAFIA just to throw it out there, share it when the excitement is still running high, and not over think things too much. Sometimes that lightning in a bottle moment is enough to make something special, and to force anymore labour onto it would tarnish the magic.

7.6

Standouts: BALD!, BALD! REMIX, CUTIE PIE!

Hip-Hop (2020) EQT/Republic. Reviewed September 24^th, 2021

EP2!

JPEGMAFIA

This year's EP2! from JPEGMAFIA didn't seem to have quite the same rollout as the last one, as I don't remember him steadily releasing these songs throughout the year. While I praised the last EP for feeling off the cuff and spontaneous, this batch of songs does feel underwritten by comparison. There isn't really a banger beat here as most tracks kinda follow that BODYGUARD! formula, except not really as engaging. The auto-tuned rapping tends to be quite monotonous and some of the 'tough guy bars' seem recycled from previous Peggy projects. There was one track that did sort of stand out to me, and that was THIS ONES FOR US!. I love the piano sound on this instrumental. It sounds a little sharper, almost like striking bells instead of strings. I was also a little more impressed with the bars on this track. Peggy drops a couple great lines about performative 'wokeness', white advantage in the workplace, and his marksmanship which you do not take lightly from a United States veteran. Other than that though, I didn't find all that much to get excited over on this set of songs.