As one of hip-hop’s most innovative outliers, Jpegmafia has come out tonight dressed like a bad guy in a western. All in black, including a cowboy hat and long leather coat, the maverick rapper swaggers around looking like the negative personification of Beyoncé’s glittery country takeover Cowboy Carter, which scooped two Grammys last week.
Jpeg’s music, though, casts him as a bad guy in a post-apocalyptic genre meltdown – one in which no sound is too weird to rap to. Aphex Twin beats and a wordlessly ululating male voice? That’s Real Nega, from Jpegmafia’s breakout 2018 album Veteran. Japanese advert samples and chiptune video game sonics? They feature prominently on Garbage Pale Kids, a brilliant cut from Jpeg’s collaborative album with fellow hip-hop left-fielder Danny Brown, Scaring the Hoes, which made many 2023 year-end lists.
