JPEGMaifa, an underground rapper, songwriter, and producer, has had a fresh reputation as an artist who has never made a single bad album. His most acclaimed album, “LP!”, won Best Album of the Year of 2021 on Rate My Music, and his latest album “Scaring the H—-,” a collaboration between him and Danny Brown, another rapper and a friend of his, also won the album of 2023. The first teaser of the new album was the new single, “Don’t Rely On Other Men,” released on June 17 of this year. A second single, “SIN MIEDO,” was released 28 days after the first single, on July 15. Two weeks later, he officially announced his new album “ILDMYFY” on Aug. 1.
The album has more of an aggressive tone than his last album. I mean, it was aggressive, but this is on a different level. He is coming at you with both direction and magnitude. The album starts with the track called “i scream this in the mirror before i interact with anyone,” which is an Easter egg to the song “I Break Mirrors With My Face in the United States” from the album “The Power of B” by Death Grips, who are a rap group of similar talent to JPEGMAFIA. The track itself starts with a nice jazzy beat with Peggy saying, “If I was an NBA Player, I’d be Dillon Brooks but Worse.” Dillon Brooks is a Canadian Basketball Player who was on The Houston Rockets, The Memphis Grizzlies, and currently, the Canadian national team. Brooks is known for trash-talking and getting under other people’s skin for fun. So, this line means that Peggy is saying that he is more irritable than Dillan Brooks is to other people. And that he is worse at basketball than Brooks.
The next track is the second single “SIN MIEDO,” Spanish for “No Fear.” This song started as a freestyle that he had done for his last album, but he later put the track on a collection of freestyles he did the past year. This version of Freestyle is a complete and perfected version with beats and guitar working together. They are so loud and heavy that you can’t even hear the rapping at points.
After SIN MIEDO and four new songs, we get to “don’t rely on other men,” the album’s second single. This is my favorite of the whole album; I will tell you why in a moment. The song starts with a line from the first episode of the first season of “Succession,” when Brian Cox’s character asks “Heard you got knocked down?” Peggy then uses that quote as the main beat for this song and that beat keeps playing until that beat becomes more than just a beat. Accompanied by a powerful guitar riff, it becomes the most cinematic song I ever heard from Peggy. Every time I hear that song, I feel like I ascend to a new plane of existence.
Another track I liked was “JPEGULTRA!”, featuring Denzel Curry. This one is way different from the other as, unlike the other gritty songs, which were vigorous and in-your-face like the other songs are on the album, this one feels like you are at a school football game with a beat that sounds like a marching band trying to excite the crowd.
Overall, this album is a great listen, especially if you like more aggressive and hardcore Hip-Hop/Rap (Injury Reserve, Death Grips, Danny Brown, etc.). It has 14 songs and is 41 minutes and 24 seconds long. I would give this album an eight out of ten.
