SCARING THE HOES – JPEGMAFIA, Danny Brown ★★★★½

Year	Album	Artists	Stars	Score	Genre
2023	SCARING THE HOES	JPEGMAFIA, Danny Brown	★★★★½	90	Hip-Hop

Scaring the Hoes is probably the most creative, experimental hip-hop album to come out over the past 10 years, and it makes sense given two of the most unique talents in hip-hop from the past decade joined forces to create it.

Nothing sounds quite like it, from its super sped up, hyperpop-esque samples and electronic elements, to the out of nowhere beat switches, the deep bass drops, the disorienting mixing that sometimes buries the vocals and the chaotic wordplay and delivery from Danny Brown and JPEGMAFIA.

At 37 minutes, only three of the 14 tracks are over three minutes long, but they each are bursting at the seams with production elements, noise and lyrical lines delivered seemingly at 2 or 3 times natural speed. The songs have the attention span of a 7 year old who just broke into a secret stash of Skittles, mixed with the frantic energy of a crackhead who’s about to crash down from a high if they can’t get their hands on more stuff.    

Peggy is unhinged as a producer here, with the freedom to move wherever he wants from song to song and even within the same verse sometimes. He constantly layers these blaring synths that smack you over the head, overweight drum hits that rattle the inside of your ears, and his signature deep, rolling bass notes that you feel in your gut. Every single time that bass kicks in on this record is near perfection. The album’s music is all about catching you off guard, because you can’t anticipate some of the beat switches, or the delayed basslines, the off-tempo rhythms, syncopations and speedups.  

Songs like “Kingdom Hearts” have so much going on: diced up heavenly, ethereal vocal samples; heavy, sinister walking basslines; distant rhythm guitar strumming that gallops in and out of sight like a unicorn through the fog; and sporadic tempo and time signature changes that transition between verses. 

“Fentanyl Tester” uses a chopped up sample of Kelis’s “Milkshakes” throughout as percussion, with a gentle staccato synth melody that evolves into a buzzing, mechanical bass and drum line. “Burfict!” has a catchy, confident horn fanfare that sounds like a stadium tune, with drums and bass that would shake the bleachers. 

“God Loves You” uses a tremendous interdenominational choir sample over and over again that becomes an earworm, while Danny Brown says some of the filthiest lyrics you’ll ever hear directly attached to biblical references. 

JPEG sings a bit on “Jack Harlow Combo Meals,” which could abstractly be considered a jazz-rap song with a piano sample that could be called waiting room music played over these offbeat, clanking kitchen utensil drums. 

Even when Danny Brown and JPEGMAFIA slow their flows down, there’s so much packed into their verses that it’s almost impossible to keep up or even hear their sometimes off-beat rhymes over the beautiful mess of sounds. 

Danny Brown is great here throughout, but I want to focus more on Peggy. Always an encyclopedia of sports, wrestling, pop culture and political knowledge, on this record references are his language. 

Here’s a list of just the direct references by JPEG on the album, ignoring the samples and interpolations scattered throughout the record, the unspecific callouts to things like dentist, pharmaceuticals, brands, NATO and locations, TV, movies and videogames, the song names that reference Vontaze Burfict, Jack Harlow and Run The Jewels, and any additional references by Danny (and there are several). 

1. Fuck Elon Musk
2. Feel like Papa John (Insane)
3. Laughin’ straight to the bank, Tony Khan
4. Pussy gettin’ beat up like Gibbs
5. Don’t fuck with niggas, like Hulk Hogan
6. Rittenhouse with the shot
7. Stretchin’ your girl, Iron Sheik
8. Go from Elon to Ye in a week
9. Kai, one twitch and banned
10. Feelin’ free as speech, Colin Kaep
11. Late night like Conan
12. Dance like Gotenks
13. Takin’ shots everyday like DeRozan
14. Raekwon, stick to the cream
15. Servin’ niggas like Paula Deen
16. Hook shot, Kareem
17. Get rocked like Chrisean
18. Lost like Gilligan
19. Got Jay for Bey
20. ‘Bout thе money, Mr. Slate
21. Put together like Danity Kane
22. Take shots like Klay
23. Singing like Bilal
24. Gimme that Nancy, 
25. Gimme that Ruth,
26. Gimme that Barbara, take out the tooth
27. Feel like Trump
28. Drippin’ like Rudy
29. Cover they face, Mach-Hommy
30. Gimme that Rogan 
31. Hit it like H-Town
32. Frank Lucas, feeling blue 
33. Look like Olivia Munn
34. Addicts attached like Tom Holland
35. Faker than Andy Kaufman
36. Shia LaBeouf in all these problems
37. Smack your bitch up like Prodigy
38. Smack my bitch ass to Prodigy
39. Black AOC
40. Made real fuckin’ Gs like Eazy-E
41. Underground like a young Bun B
42. Pyrex living like Digga D
43. Black Marjorie Taylor Greene
44. Deep throat sound like Reese
45. Budd Dwyer before they do that
46. Choppa, Kendrick-size
47. Champ one time, Bisping
48. Felonies like Ezra
49. Hunter Biden, stay out my sink
50. Feel like P!nk
51. Form up like Danity Kane
52. A pic with Ghislaine
53. A feature with Drake
54. Kyrie your car
55. Ezra my name
56. Won’t be like Mike
57. Made beats with Tribe
58. Singing like Aaron Hall
59. shoulder leanin’ like Dro
60. Wipe like Boosie 
61. Keep thinkin’ you Bruce Lee
62. Put you on the screen like Christopher Nol’
63. Goin’ out like The Crow
64. Like AB give Gisele the whole ruler
65. Keep one eye open like Slick Rick The Ruler
66. On your bitch like Darby
67. Tongue out likе KISS
68. Choppa young as Matt Gaetz b-

That’s 68 I found on one listen through, and I’m sure that’s missing a few. If you consider the record is only 37 minutes long, and that Peggy only has 50% of the lines, plus another 20% of the record is probably just instrumentals, that’s four and a half shoutouts a minute, not including the other crazy shit he mentions.  It’s an impressive amount of information to cram into such a concise package.