Certain collaborations are logical. I was among thousands of ecstatic fans when Danny Brown initially hinted at a collaborative effort with JPEGMAFIA at the Smokers Club Festival in San Bernadino in 2022. Fans of both musicians witnessed how effectively their genres blended after an intriguing debut performance on "Negro Spiritual," from Brown's 2019 album uknowhatimsayin? Both JPEG and Danny had developed a style that was influenced by internet culture and outlandish boasts combined with equally insane humor, thus there were parallel lyrical impulses. Both of them were drawn to experimental and aggressive production, with pioneering underground projects like Veteran and Atrocity Exhibition featuring harsh soundscapes. For both artists, it was the most apparent choice for a combined effort.
Scaring the Hoes is stylistically similar to JPEG's previous studio album, LP!, in that it features hardcore rap. The analog and low-fi style of the music videos was furthered by JPEG's Bandcamp note on the album, which stated, "I practiced with the SP-404 for about a year." I'm glad that throughout my time with this machine and my favorite rapper, I was able to produce some really good music. This might be referred to as a practice session. Blaxploitation movies served as the inspiration for the album cover for streaming and merchandise. For the former, the musicians were edited into the theatrical release poster for "Sweet Jesus, Preacherman."
"Lean Beef Patty," the lead song from the album, premieres first. With the track title alluding to a well-known female fitness guru, the opening track gives us an early impression of this project's persistently online character. JPEG quickly breaks into his signature brazen social commentary over an instrumental sample of Diddy's "I Need A Girl (Pt. 2)," saying, "First off, fukk Elon Musk/Eight dollars too much, bytch that's expensive." The verse gains intensity further with the complete drum rhythm, reaching a peak when JPEG boasts of being the best rapper in the game, saying, "This ain't what you want. "N*****, fukk you all, I feel like Papa John." He ends his stanza by making more allusions to his earlier work and by making a statement. He also gives Elon one more chance.
The hysterically titled "Steppa Pig" keeps the energy high. Danny takes the lead, adding a darker touch to his drug stories over buzzing waves of music, delivering his own declarations of superiority in rap with lines like "They career like Whitney in the bathtub/Sad as fukk" and "Uncut with the topside/My brain fried, don't do drugs/Had two plugs, one just died." After a contentious split with his label, which was covered in LP!, JPEG returns and talks about his newly discovered creative autonomy. He sings, "They don't got nothin' for me/It's like I been workin' for crumbs, now I'm feelin' free as my speech." The music then transitions into a short yet striking bridge while the background vocal sample becomes increasingly audible.
Instead of making an effort to lessen the sample's low end distortion, more attention is placed on letting the melodies drift in and out of the murky mix. Using references to everything from Disney to Dragon Ball Z, JPEG returns with another attack on the negative aspects of his fandom. "They off that 2chan high, incels just can't let it go like Frozen/Bet if I let off these shots, no games, you finna dance just like Gotenks," he says.
The project's artistic inspiration is best explained by the title track. JPEG sarcastically mocks the harsh music he's renowned for over a free-flowing jazz sample, starting with simple ambient noise and claps. “Stop scarin’ the hoes/Play that shyt’ll have them touch they toes/’We don’t wanna hear that weird shyt no more’/’What the fukk is that? Give me back my aux cord.’”
He believes that in the pursuit of commercial success, the rap industry has sacrificed some artistic integrity, as evidenced by the lyrics "Play somethingthin' for the bytches/How the fukk we supposed to make money off this shyt?/You wanna be an MC? It's 1993, what the heck do you think? Danny walks in, and the instrumental remains minimal, with simply the atonal jazz line and claps. The song entirely collapses as Danny makes his case, "Because it's all about the scams, catch up old man/Say it ain't about the bars 'cause it's all about the brand." The track's various sections come together to create a furious beat with tones of buzzing that are consistent with the album's overall vibe. Here's where the production truly took off.
"Garbage Pale Kids" is a harsh critique of two things: the most vociferous fan bases of JPEG and Danny, as well as the 1980s trading card series Garbage Pail Kids, which mocked Cabbage Patch Kids dolls by featuring absurd defects. JPEG creates one of the album's most brutal beats by splicing strange samples from Japanese food ads.
"N***** don't rap no more, they just sell clothes/So I should probably quit and start a line of bathrobes," begins Danny, carrying on from where he left off. One of the more well-known quotes from the album that I'll give at the conclusion of the review is another example of Danny's continued homage to artistic forebears. With words like "Getting Brown to your yard/Need me more than a milkshake," which alludes to the sample that would be used in the following track, Danny finally creates some connection between the tracks. JPEG produced a quick, intense guitar solo for the track's instrumental breaks, which is followed by an equally intense verse.
JPEG quickly expresses his anger at the problematic fan base demographics, including their preference for celebrities who have a history of using racist slurs “Caught that Raekwon, you should stick to the cream/Servin’ these n***** like I’m Paula Deen…I don’t believe what you say on them beats/They gave you hands and cleats, why you still posting memes?”
"Fentanyl Tester," whose production features a protracted interpolation of Kelis' "Milkshake," is the next in the series of ridiculous track names. With the words, "How you hating and broke, no fixing 'em/Riding dikk like these rappers are Sybians," JPEG elaborates on his dislike of dikk-riding fanbases. He does, however, take pride in his position as the "numero ace" of "weirdo rap" in the same sentence. For his brief verse, Danny makes a few humorous but almost absurd claims, like "Tell no lies, just tell your truth/I'm a big dog like Marmaduke." After the lyrics, the song's outro has one of the best sample chops I've heard in a long time. and a production highlight of the album as JPEG completely mutilates the original Kelis sample before the track cuts out suddenly to the sound of vinyl static.
? This + HOE my favorite tracks
