JPEGMAFIA, rap's most tireless agitator, looks inward

JPEGMAFIA, rap's most tireless agitator, looks inward On a career-best album, a committed hater turns his fury toward personal ends toggle caption Keeyahtay Lewis on behalf of The Rooftop at Pier 17 In January, the rapper and producer JPEGMAFIA ignited some frustrated chatter online when a photo of him and Kanye West, hinting at a collaboration, appeared on his Instagram. “When they can’t read you like a book / They gon’ try to attack what you stand on,” he raps a few minutes into I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU, before resetting his terms: “I’ma take off even if I land wrong / And take everything I can get my hands on.” Later on, he sounds nearly giddy poking fun at the online firestorm, rapping “The lies don’t stick, narratives ain’t fittin’ / Now they gotta pivot, the goalpost shifts” near the end of “Exmilitary,” a song that fires from the hip in all directions — at family, at exes, at bros with no Black friends, at nepo babies, at opps who move too much like “Harvey, Jeffrey, R. Kelly,” the unholy trinity of celebrity sex offenders. “Hating for free but you can’t pay your rent / If you’re gonna d***-ride, make it make cents,” he raps on “it’s dark and hell is hot.” A lot of rap is preoccupied with hate — resentment and envy, specifically — but JPEG has a way of approximating the snowballing whataboutism of the social web, making it seem like he is penetrating its surreal, suffocating clutch even as the echo chamber bears down on him. On “New Black History,” he raps, “Y’all wish I kept on eatin’ prison lunch ‘cause I’m tweetin’ too much,” sounding emboldened to keep posting around a shadow-ban. “I can’t defend this b**** up in the mirror / I’d rather ask forgiveness than permission,” he raps on “Don’t Put Anything on the Bible.” Later on, he adds, “My b**** never got taken from me, I lost her myself / My b**** never got comfort from me, I needed too much help.” He doesn’t seem much interested in that help now, and it would be imprecise to say he expresses anything like contrition.