“50 beat-switches a minute, they gonna put me in a Guinness,” boasts JPEGMAFIA in one bar on his new album I Lay Down My Life For You.
It’s true that he could well be in record territory for style and gear changes across all of his five albums. The Baltimore rapper and producer is also an Afghanistan War veteran, but he’s no bleeding Stars & Stripes patriot. If anything, his service has made him deeply skeptical of the US and authority, and that feeds into his whole artistic process and persona.
Peggy is an extremely, *chronically* online character, but not in a flexing muscles and sharing heart-hands way. He deconstructs polarising politics and toxic fan culture through extreme trolling and rage-baiting whole legions of online tribes.
He’s one of the most thrilling hip-hop artists to emerge in the last decade, with beats concocted out of hardcore punk samples, wild electronics, harsh noise, found sound metallic percussion, bastardised R&B and intensely niche internet rabbit hole shitposting humour.
He released I Lay Down My Life For You as a surprise drop after performatively apologising for its non-appearance seemingly every other week. This one’s heavier on guitar riffage but it’s far from conventional, and Peggy’s still a one-off, switching things up on every record.
Moo Kid 