JPEGMAFIA - EXPERIMENTAL RAP

By Lucero Dunscombe

JPEGMAFIA’s sixth studio album EXPERIMENTAL RAP, released May 21, is a repetitive and predictable project. This empty and unnecessary album is about twenty five songs too long. JPEGMAFIA has come a long way since his 2018 album, Veteran, but EXPERIMENTAL RAP strays away from JPEGMAFIA’s original sound. Not in an enjoyable way either, but in a way that indicates that Peggy has lost what made him special.

EXPERIMENTAL RAP has a fast paced and eclectic production that uses heavily chopped samples combining a host of inspirations from other genres. On the song “$ (Money)” the track is driven by a pulsating dubstep beat with wobbly bass, while a song like “TSAR BOMBA” has a beat led by electric guitar heavy metal riffage and breakdowns. Peggy’s new production attempts to be complex in his sampling and intense variation in musical styles, but does the opposite — it feels forced and synthetic. In his classic style — fast bars, chopped samples and deep 808s, JPEGMAFIA attempts to bring himself back into the spotlight with some new changes, but just helps prove to the public that he has fallen off.

A notable sample is Brenda Russell’s “A Little Bit of Love” on the song “Pop This Heat.” It's an attempt to pay homage to a well known sample, but the result feels empty and soulless when compared to Big Pun’s soulful and rich use of this sample in “Still Not a Player.” It doesn’t do much for the listener to hear a 70s soul sample based around melodic piano and rich bass when it’s a part of an album basing itself around heavily electronic and fast moving production and lyrics.

Let us not gloss over Peggy’s poor, gimmicky lyricism. He’s known for these kinds of bars, but it goes over the top in the opening lines of 24th track “1st Amendment.” PEGMAFIA has done far more interesting things with his lyrics in the past, with better political bars on “Baby I’m Bleeding”. A Charlie Kirk bar is low bearing fruit. Four Charlie Kirk bars is just embarrassing.

The album does end on a high note with “You will always lose money chasing women, but you will never lose women chasing money.” Despite the corny and incel-esque title, it’s a pretty alright instrumental track featuring a distorted guitar. It wraps up the album nicely, but the majority of this release doesn’t approach its adequacy.