Experimental Rap

About

<b>Over a 25-track sprawl, the definitive heretical hip-hop statement from the restless MC.</b> The title of JPEGMAFIA’s sixth album, <i>EXPERIMENTAL RAP</i>, is so self-evident, it practically scans as a joke—after all, has this dude ever made anything else? The LA-via-Baltimore maverick has always dared you to keep with him, be it his whiplashing news-ticker flows or his chaotic, short-attention-spanned approach to sound design. But with its overwhelming 25-track sprawl, <i>EXPERIMENTAL RAP</i> was conceived as his definitive thesis statement on the form, with each track a case study in how far he can push the sonic parameters of hip-hop while still staying true to the genre’s fundamentals. On <b>“Burning Hammer,”</b> that means cycling through battering-ram hardcore drums, flamenco guitars, glitchy electronics, trap beats, and grungy rock grooves as if he were zipping through different levels of a video game. On <b>“The Ghost of Emmett Till,”</b> his staccato rhymes surf atop murderous funk-metal riffs. And while <b>“War Over Land”</b> initially appears as a tranquil, New Agey instrumental, JPEG’s irrepressible energy on the mic eventually whips the track into a tsunami-sized surge of gospel grandeur and demonic shredding, as if he were staging a boss-level showdown between God and the Devil. Pro tip: Listen to <i>EXPERIMENTAL RAP</i> with the repeat function activated, as the closing snippet of sampled dialogue seamlessly connects to the very first words we hear on the record—and given this album’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it barrage of sounds, you’ll be grateful to have another opportunity to take it all in again.

via Apple Music