Album Review: EP! by JPEGMAFIA
By: Lazy Music Guru
Tags: Album Review, Ep, Music, Jpegmafia, Hip Hop

Barrington DeVaughn Hendricks, or better known by his stage name, JPEGMAFIA, is a rapper, singer, and producer from Baltimore. He’s had quite an interesting year with several features and a lot of growth from his 2019 album, All My Heroes Are Cornballs. While he released quite a few singles during the year, I didn’t really check that many out, except for his BALD! tracks. Now, several singles later, he has released a short EP titled, EP!

The first track from the EP is BALD! Since there is a remix a few tracks later, I am going to group the two right here. I actually heard both of these tracks before the EP came out, and these tracks made me excited for what JPEGMAFIA was going to put out in the future. The track opens up with a slowed down track that is eventually sped out. You get some light synths and a bass in the background. Peggy basically talks about how he’s rocking the bald hairstyle. Other than that, Denzel Curry also kills it on his feature for the remix.

After that, we have COVERED IN MONEY! The track comes in two different parts. It opens up with a skit like introduction, but JPEGMAFIA quickly comes in after the small singing tidbit. For the instrumental, he’s rapping over some distorted drums and people chanting. For the second part of the track, you get a quiet synth like instrumental backing the track. I’m not really too big on either of these instrumentals so they have been pushing me away from this track. Peggy also raps about going out with a bang and wanting to lave a legacy behind him when he dies.

BODYGUARD! is a piano heavy track once all of the noises at the beginning of the track subside. It’s also the shortest track on the EP, just under two and a half minutes. It features a heavily autotuned JPEGMAFIA singing over most of the track. At times, it sounds like it could be a BROCKHAMPTON track. On this track, he talks about wanting to be with this girl and no one else. He also talks about how this girl wants fancy cars and nice things from him.

CUTIE PIE! opens up with an upbeat and exciting drum and bass line. Peggy’s rapping is a bit different than what he usually delivers. It definitely seems less aggressive and much quieter compared to some of the other tracks on his previous albums. It seems like he was messing with a vocoder in the last bit of the track, but it seems like it’s just inaudible tidbits thrown in there. I do enjoy the sound of it, but there’s just a lot going on at the end.

THE BENDS! — OG MIX opens up with a sound clip from president Trump, which isn’t the first time Peggy has played around with politics in his music. The sound clip was talking about the support from African American voters. Since the name of the track is THE BENDS, he does throw a small nod to Radiohead’s album and the track, No Surprises, which is actually off of OK Computer. While Peggy talks about it being ‘MAGA raps’ for the second verse, he does this for satirical purposes. Other than that, that’s what mostly the second verse talks about for the rest of this track.

ROUGH 7 is oddly enough the seventh track from the album. The track has a weird wavy synth sound that carries the beat of the track. It also features the rapper Tommy Genesis that opens up the track and is periodically sprinkled in throughout. She does bring a unique perspective to the track I actually enjoyed her feature. However, since it is named ROUGH 7 there are some innuendos slipped in there by both rappers.

living single opens up with a vaporwave like aesthetic to it. While I do enjoy the light and wavy beat, I’m not too big from JPEGMAFIA’s singing tracks, which we experience mostly towards the beginning. I also don’t think his rapping fits with the beat, so there’s really no way he is able to win or have a great track with this one. This track talks about a breakup with someone else, and it also mentions the rap industry and the lack of pay.

The last and final track from the album is SUPER TUESDAY! The track opens up with some chopped noises, but then eventually switches to some string instrumentals. The beat cuts out for a few seconds in the middle, and we’re greeted with a different string instrumental, but also get a guitar thrown into the mix. Also, he mentions Super Tuesday in the track, which is when most people cast their votes for the presidential primary.

While I was excited for this, most of these are just singles that he has come up with throughout the year. Also, I just think these are one off singles that are him just experimenting other than his previous two albums which have garnered a lot of attention. Hopefully we will get another album release in the near future.

Overall Rating: 5/10

Favorite Tracks: BALD!, BALD! REMIX, ROUGH 7