Happy Sunday!

Today on the blog I have my wonderful and amazing partner Ryan who wrote an Album Review.

Without Further Ado here is the album review…

Since it was announced, the collaboration album from underground hip hop royalty, Jpegmafia and Danny Brown had been one of my most anticipated albums of the year.  These two have been some of my favorite emcees of the past 5 years or so.   Danny Brown’s Atrocity Exhibition was one of the best hip hop albums of the 2010’s and since Veteran, Jepgmafia has been consistently pushing the boundaries of the hip hop landscape.

The singles dropped prior to this were all utterly fantastic and I was utterly enthused to see what they’d have in store for me.  What I got was even better than what I had previously expected.  The two are absolutely at the top of their game in terms of production, lyricism, everything that could possibly make for an essential hip-hop album.

Their new album, Stop Scaring the Hoes, will quite possibly be the greatest hip hop album of the year.

From the first bar on the first track, Lean Beef Patty, I knew I’d be in for a good time with this album. “First off, fuck Elon Musk”, what a great way to begin literally any song under the sun.  The sped up vocals on the beat somehow really work for me as well, even though it isn’t typically my cup of tea. the beat hit super hard, there’s something about it that feels ripped out of a Super Nintendo game, even though that isn’t necessarily where the sample comes from, but as a game design major and massive nerd it appeals to me on visceral level.

On Steppa Pig we’re once again treated to some absolutely brilliant production from Jpegmafia.  It’s a bit on the muddy side, but in spite of tacking against the grain here, it still really pops.  That insight remains true throughout most of the albums run time.

The beat switches up continually throughout the song, keeping the track sonically interesting with each new curve and sway.  The lyric comparing himself to Colin Kaepernick, in how irreplaceable he is, seems incredibly prescient here.  It’s a great track, following this same trend throughout essentially the entire album.

Normally I hate clap tracks, but the one on the title track sounds great in rhythm with Peggy and Danny Brown’s respective flows.  I also earnestly love their commentary on the modern state of rap music on this track and their own reputation for often abrasive music.  Whether or not it was their intention, one gets the impression of being stuck between a glorified past and heavily commodified future.

Speaking of, you’ll notice a distinct lack of me comparing either Peggy or Danny Brown to any their hip hop contemporaries.  It’s difficult to think of anyone TO compare either two, they have such unique deliveries and such distinct creative impulses that they’ve really staked out their own lane in a modern hip hop landscape primarily spitting out the same trap centric beats and flows (whether or good or bad) over and over again until we’re all sick of it.

The beat on the next tack, garbage pail kids, has one of the most creative samples I’ve heard of from any hip hop artist.  It sounds like it came straight out a direct to video kids safety video from Japan.  This might initially sound like a bizarre choice, but Peggy really makes it work here.

It’s also nice to see Danny Brown back to his more shoutly delivery that made him famous after being somewhat more subdued on his last album, 2019’s uknowwhatimsayin?.   Hearing his crazy flow on a relaxing and chill track like Orange Juice Jones is a really funny and incredibly welcome juxtaposition.

I really appreciate that Peggy let Danny Brown have the mic so often throughout this album because it cannot be emphasized more that he’s truly at the top of his game here.

As to some of my favorite moments on this album I really like the syncopated drum and bass beat on Fentanyl Tester, that also threw in a sample of Milkshake by Kelis.  Which too, like a great deal of this album was incredibly funny and unexpected.  I’ve also been trying to figure out why Kingdom Hearts Key is called Kingdom Hearts Key.

I haven’t quite drawn a single conclusion yet. other than it perhaps sampling Hikaru Utada who just so happened to sing the opening theme, Simple and Clean for the first Kingdom Hearts game.  I also love all of the playful religious subversion on God Loves You, and creative use of a sample of Ski Mask the Slump God, all intended to reflect their own sexual prowess.

The pop culture references are also incredibly funny throughout the album and I’m pretty sure they also diss Jack Harlow’s truly awful 2022 album at least a couple of times. Scaring the Hoes has a fairly short run time as well, which I like as someone who’d grown incredibly tired of artists like Drake who seem to perpetually manufacture schemes to bloat their albums to a greater length than they really ought to be.

Overall, if you’re looking for a really great, experimental hip hop album that isn’t afraid to let loose and have fun, while continually being surprising and refreshing, I couldn’t possibly recommend Scaring the Hoes more.  I’m likely to buy this one on vinyl as well, because the production really lends itself to sounding great on vinyl.

You can buy it the album here or listen to it on Spotify or Pandora.

-Ryan Morgan

If you want to read yesterday’s post it is here.