Like All My Heroes Are Corballs, JPEGMAFIA continues his stride with his experimental nature and implements more Punk Rap flavors for your ear with his latest album, I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU. It’s more than just reeling in the fantastic production through your ears, it’s hearing JPEGMAFIA lower his defenses, his way, and showing a different side of himself, even if it’s through some more braggadocio raps—the one real hit-or-miss component considering how terminally online he is, making some of these feel less hard. It’s an album that fills you with a bit of everything, but Peggy is audaciously enigmatic, making his vocals clash with the production with captivating intensity, it becomes harder to put down, especially when the equilibrium is high between the beats and flows. It comes with many highs but significant lows, yet enough peak moments, enough to give it more than one spin. It’s sonically more of a contrast to his collaboration with Danny Brown, Scaring the Hoes, and the avant-gardness of LP! Here, he is trying new tricks while incorporating sounds that have meshed beautifully with his aesthetic, so that when you finish, don’t be surprised if the urge to repeat is high.
JPEGMAFIA has been more consistent with his production than his rapping, though that isn’t to say it’s a lopsided affair. Though JPEGMAFIA rapping a lot over his production adds separate dimensions, giving it an extra layer of zeal, shimmering beneath a dark gemstone, it’s never as perfect as you want it to be. He’s weaving audacious, bombastic, and rarely busy sounds together and giving us something different than the last solo outing while bringing back some pivotal sounds that made All My Heroes Are Corballs great. I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU was supposed to be released the previous year but didn’t; JPEG didn’t want to saturate the market with people bumping Scaring the Hoes to the nines–a contrast to it in sound, you hear where JPEGMAFIA is holding back to allow some of the tenderer moments in the production to build itself an identity that shifts from the apropos of what you’d hear on “Sin Miedo” as opposed to “Loop It and Leave It,” which is more toned than most Peggy tracks. It’s a wind down from what comes off as more punk-rock. There is a bravado to the range he reflects here, feeling more heightened.
JPEGMAFIA being the prominent producer for his projects has always been demonstrative of the range his ears dictate, specifically because it feels more 1:1, relying on his identity politics instead of forcing a new direction for traction. It’s a common trait seen with many Rapper-Producer acts, and Peggy is no exception; he makes the transition from riotous Hip-Hop to Rock notes and later more sobering beats and introspective lyrics with the final four tracks. What precedes it is some fantastic moments that could perk any music fan’s ears, like the hard rock influence on “Sin Miedo” and “Vulgar Display of Power” or the more dark electronic notes in “I’ll Be Right There” and “Jihad Joe,” where the synths get rabid with the varying tempos and pitches getting blended. At its core, these tracks have a basis in Hip-Hop to create the foundational tower that Peggy climbs to be as vocal as he can. Much of the content that emanates from it relays elements of his own life to this point, flexing by showcasing why he is better than most and reliving these highs through them before taking a pivot at the end, where he raps about mental health and broken relationships, and being self-aware.
JPEGMAFIA’s self-awareness on “either on or off the drugs” is elating, as he brings this sense of a grounded reality where he knows the scale of his fanbase while understanding the loyalty from them and his mutuals, like Danny Brown, Denzel Curry, and Vince Staples, the latter two being on the album themselves. It makes some of these tracks feel more real, like his homage (in the name) to Death Grips with “Exmilitary,” where he raps on his history as a veteran of the military while continuing to use terminology that correlates to the lyrical ethos of where he is coming from, topically. “Vulgar display of power” gives us this unhinged JPEGMAFIA that feels true to himself and doesn’t try to cut corners around taboo subjects, like masochism. Vince Staples and Denzel Curry’s features, as opposed to Freakyy on his two, are highlights that accompany the album, especially Vince, who came and went and had me needing a new project where he just raps over Peggy beats. I’d be first in line for that. Like I would with many. But as always, don’t expect different from him as his style remains consistent.
JPEGMAFIA, though, for the last year+ has been too terminally online recently, so it can be understandable if his braggadocio nature doesn’t fully land, like with some of the jabs taken at Freddie Gibbs on “JPEGULTRA” or the monetary flexing on “don’t rely on other men (album version),” just don’t land as one would expect, but’s merely two of the four drawbacks, (the other two being the Freakyy tracks). However, there is enough here to recommend because Peggy makes nothing feel less than 100%. Some people may become fans from this, and others will see what I see as a fan, but when it’s all said and done, the album will have more rotation than LP; that is saying a lot. Give this a spin because if not for the production, it wouldn’t be as worth it, and thankfully, we got some fire bars to back it up.
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