album review: 'SCARING THE HOES' by JPEGMAFIA & danny brown

So here’s a fun little story - about nine years ago, I went to a house party. I got there a little early with a couple of friends, we were setting up drinks and food and I was given the job of the aux cord - after all, here’s this guy who is starting to build traction on YouTube as a music critic, surely he’d have a great playlist for a party, especially if we were playing predominantly hip-hop. Hell, the guy running the party wanted ‘current underground shit’, and that I could deliver…

And almost immediately the aux cord gotten taken away from me because in reality, nobody really wanted my playlist of Freddie Gibbs, Danny Brown, clipping, and especially Step Brothers, the collab between Alchemist and Evidence; that wasn’t cool music for a party, no girls wanted to listen to that shit! So as one of the few people who knew how to cook I was on BBQ duty the rest of the night while they got the playlist of early Migos, The Weeknd and Drake that they wanted, but the scene stuck with me, especially when you fast forward to late 2021, when I was talking about hip-hop during personal training and I shared ‘LP!’ by JPEGMAFIA with my trainer. And make no mistake, he and I had a great time… but everyone else who was training in the same room at the gym kept asking to switch to something a little less ‘wicked’, and those complaints were coming predominantly from men.

My point is that there’s long been a belief that there are subgenres and sounds within rap that ‘scare the hoes’, especially of the more violent or abrasive underground sounds - if you’re looking to set the mood or vibe, that’s a way to clear the room, especially of any women. Of course the reality is more complicated - more folks and especially more women are accepting of violent and weird nowadays than they were in the simpler times of 2014, especially if you stick to the more accessible bangers - and again, both cases the folks that were telling me to change the music weren’t women; it was guys made uncomfortable by stuff outside their norm, and who says guys can’t be hoes after all? All of this was on my mind when I heard about SCARING THE HOES, the collab project between veteran producer and rapper JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown, both who are known for some of the most “out-there” experimental rap in production and content… although I’d argue that the reality is that both of them are more accessible than you give them credit, and if you can get your mind into their frame of reference, the material goes down pretty quick. In other words, given how much I liked when Danny Brown worked with Peggy before, and how LP! was one of the best albums of 2021, and how when Danny Brown gets on the most experimental of production we get Atrocity Exhibition, I was really excited for this album… so what did we get?

So here’s a contentious opinion: this album reminds me a lot of the first Run The Jewels album, a comparison that the duo here already anticipated because they literally named a song after them. But it’s one of that I think holds water beyond just two older veteran MCs and producers teaming up for a collection of bangers: this is an album that runs on flagrant, horny, forward-thinking bravado where the wild production and chemistry sets the standard sky high, to say nothing of their previous albums. And that’s also where I think this falls in a bit of an odd space for me: this is an album that’s intentionally trying to blow away those who’d be alienated by its production and energy, but if you withstand the barrage because you’re familiar with both of these guys’ catalogs, it’s a surprisingly breezy listen, where it feels more like a primer to a collab that could deliver even stronger in the future.

So let’s start with the obvious: if we are going to make the Run The Jewels comparison, I think Killer Mike slides a bit more neatly into El-P’s production than Danny Brown does into JPEGMAFIA’s, and by extension it can come across like this is more of a JPEGMAFIA project with a lot of Danny guest features rather than a pairing of equals. Part of this - and I already know the meme that’s coming here in response - is the mixing and mastering, less that it’s bad but that it’s idiosyncratic and feels built for JPEGMAFIA’s vocal timbre more than Danny Brown’s. In short, Danny Brown’s odd squawk is a tough fit for a lot of production, but JPEGMAFIA’s blown out blur of crushing percussion and chopped samples gives him a pocket but not much room to really flatter the full range of his voice, which is why he can sound swallowed within the samples and synths that are as loud as him if not louder. And it’s less of an issue for JPEGMAFIA simply because his voice is more elastic - he’s a bit more dynamic, and given just how much he’s produced for himself, you get the feeling he’s more familiar with where he can punch through. And this is where you encounter a tougher issue: you can tell they’re still hashing out a chemistry that doesn’t quite feel natural yet. Their sense of excess, provocation, and humour is line, but it’s not seamless, and that’s a separation you notice once you become accustomed to the production. Again, it’s very reminiscent of the first Run The Jewels album, except that project had the benefit of just going for pure bangers and while that album has density, it didn’t sacrifice the immediacy to get there, whereas Danny Brown and JPEGMAFIA have that density upfront from the jump.

Well, ‘density’ in a manner of speaking - mostly it comes across with the production which necessarily forces you to listen closer in order to catch everything in the fast flows, especially as the percussion often mutates across breakbeats, scratching, and tempo shifts, and that’s before the mix is bricked out by JPEGMAFIA throwing cacophonous blasts at you. Take ‘Garbage Pale Kids’, where after a cluster of samples, one from an old meatpacking commercial - I see what you’re doing there, Peggy - there’s a lot of chirpy vocals as the mix roils but for the transitions erupts into this absolutely filthy roar of guitar, proving just how heavy this album can get when it wants to, like on that percussive clank with the blubbery synths on ‘Shut Your Bitch Ass Up / Muddy Waters’, or the southern gospel swell behind ‘God Loves You’ or how ‘Where Ya Get Your Coke From’ crushes everything around its patter. Then there’s ‘Burfict’ that sounds like an oldschool ESPN sports intro ripped into the biggest banger of this album - a joke I’m tentative to make except Peggy references Antonio Brown on ‘Heaven On Earth’ so I’m fairly certain I was set up for it, and that song highlights just how well Peggy will switch into crooning or softer touches around the final third stuffed with sex jams, like on ‘Orange Juice Jones’, the Japanese guitars and bells on ‘Kingdom Hearts Key’, or the contorted smooth jazz of ‘Jack Harlow Combo Meal’, made all the more funny by just how filthy that sax was on ‘Run The Jewels which came one song before; the sequencing of this project is shocking good given how off the wall it often is. Speaking of which, then there’s the title track with its deranged handclaps and kooky melody with percussion that goes hard as hell, or how ‘Kingdom Hearts Key’ bends across time signatures and somehow everyone manages to find a pocket - with the one guest feature from redveil probably with one of his hardest performances to date, even if his verse felt abbreviated. But I can’t say all the experimental production works for me: the proliferation of chipmunked vocals on ‘Lean Beef Patty’ didn’t really click, the groove on ‘Heaven On Earth’ felt a bit clunky, and as a whole I found myself wishing for more choruses with melodic support - you were already going to scare the hoes with this production palette, stronger hooks would only help here!

But that’s the thing: when you get past that dense barrier to entry, this album has the feel of two underground vets flexing their might with bruising debauchery, but not exactly going much deeper, the other comparison to the first Run The Jewels album that really came to mind. This is where a lot of folks are also saying that JPEGMAFIA kind of overpowers Danny Brown in terms of content, especially given that Peggy can be way more politically charged and direct in his rhetoric and name-drops, but I’d argue it’s a bit more complex and a double-edged sword. For one, as much as my politics fall closer in line with Peggy and I have no problem with him baiting rappers who rely on fakery especially with his newfound label freedom - the Kaepernick bar really jumps out here, as does that Matt Gaetz line - this is provocation I’ve heard before from him before and I don’t think it cuts as deeply as LP! did. But for another, I think Danny Brown gets in a lot too - he’s got the one verse on the title track that highlights just how much modern rap isn’t about music or artistic experimentation, but an increasingly corporatized vibe that renders many of its advocates hypocrites, later echoes on ‘Jack Harlow Combo Meal’ where he scorns the guys who bought the fast food with that branding. Both of these guys are veterans who are more annoyed that folks won’t take chances, which is why they are so flavourful and flagrant - not all of the experiments work, but that’s what experiments are for, and Peggy is smart enough to call out white audiences who’ll just complain as their fleeting contributions to the culture, which is often taken with more outsized influence than it deserves - yes, I’m aware of the irony here.

But truth be told, you can easily overthink an album like this because a lot of it is braggadocious flexes, sex and pop culture references that made me holler with laughter especially if you pay attention to how many subtle callbacks they have either a few bars or a few songs later, and two guys clearly having a blast in the studio, and simply on that level this is a great time! I would say it’s one of the best rap albums I’ve heard in 2023… but truth be told rap has had a rough 2023 thus far and there’s not much competition, and I’m not sure how all the rough edges at the expense of stickier hooks will hold throughout the rest of the year. It’s gloriously inventive, a lot of fun, and while between Atrocity Exhibition and LP! I think both artists have done better on their own, if this is a sign of a collaboration with legs I’m certainly excited to hear more. I’m not confident in calling it one of the best of 2023 for certain as of yet… but you’re not going to hear anything else like it this year, so check it out!