Danny Brown & JPEGMAFIA 'Scaring The Hoes' Lives Up To Its Title

On the album’s title track, JPEGMAFIA spends his opening verse summing up the ethos of Scaring the Hoes. Incredibly aggressive in both production and content, his debut collaboration with fellow Hip Hop eccentric Danny Brown is a tribute to creative synergy and going against the mainstream. The result is a boisterous mashup of ideas and subgenres that is satisfying when it lands and unintelligible when it doesn’t.

In the moments where it works, Scaring the Hoes is dark and raw, unapologetically weird, and bitterly satirical. Brown, the genre’s beloved oddball, meets his kindred spirit in JPEGMAFIA, a rapper and producer with a penchant for jarring ambient influences and absurd barbs. It’s easy to question the potential byproduct of such a union. Therefore, JPEGMAFIA’s own uncertainty about it makes sense: “Play somethin’ for the bitches/ How the fuck we supposed to make money off this shit?”

Whether or not the album makes money, that it happened in the first seems kismet. The chemistry between the two artists was obvious on “Negro Spiritual” from Brown’s 2019 uknowwhatimsayin?. An equal parts sardonic and catchy hook hinted at the societal shade they could muster as a duo, and it was apparent the two look at the current state of Hip Hop with the same critical eye and share similar hangups with regard to commercial appeal.

But this full length exploration of the budding partnership delivers mixed results. At times, Scaring the Hoes has the air of modern art: brash, on-the-nose samples; high-brow pop culture references; and ironic subject matter. It’s a violent mix-up of pop and experimental, and an exploration of just how far the line between artistic independence and commercial appeal can be pushed.

In some respects, the experiment is a success. Several of JPEGMAFIA’s production choices hit big, for example: the stripped-down and sped-up sample that opens “Lean Beef Patty” or the chopped up take on Kelis’ “Milkshake” as the basis for toxic dubstep banger “Fentanyl Tester.” Other times, the production feels like a third wheel detracting attention from the message instead of enhancing it – switching up styles and tempos, sometimes multiple times mid-track.

Brown entered rehab days after the album’s release, and, in terms of content it’s clear that he finds himself at a personal crossroads, evident when he alternates between his familiar party bars and sobering references to the darker side of party life. It’s hard to tell the difference between when he’s poking fun at his old life and ruminating about succumbing to it.

JPEGMAFIA has a tendency to blast through verses, but in the moments he slows down, he flashes the witty punchlines that helped rise him to prominence. Highlights include referring to himself as “Black AOC” and the subsequent riff in “Shut Yo Bitch Ass Up/Muddy Waters” and the invitation to fellate him in “Where Ya Get Ya Coke From?” By the time that closing track rolls around, it’s easy to see why the self-described supervillains decided to team up. They share the same warped sense of humor.

Whether the duo succeeded in cluing in the rest of us into their inside joke is another question entirely. Does Brown want to get sober or stick to his old ways? Does JPEGMAFIA want to dominate the rap game or remain apart from it? Are the two dismissive of commercial appeal or are they trying to change the definition entirely?

Mind-melting and impossible to turn down, Scaring the Hoes is a musical open-palm smack. It’s fun and inventive; a mashup of experimental Hip Hop that harnesses a truly demented collection of sounds and influences from 80s commercials to gospel chorus. That combination might not make sense to everyone, but it’ll be a long revisited cult classic for those who get it.