JPEGMAFIA: Raging Rap Revolutionary

JPEGMAFIA, real name Barrington Hendricks, is a Baltimore-based rapper and producer who has released four studio albums. Most recently, in October 2021, Peggy (the shorthand for his stage name used by friends and fans) released his fourth studio album, LP!, on his thirty-second birthday. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Peggy spent much of his childhood in New York until he spent his teenage years in various places across the southern United States. These environments came to heavily shape the perspective from which he would make his music. Prior to beginning his career making music in the underground rap scene and directly following high school, Hendricks served in the Air Force, which he describes as the worst decision he’s ever made, and was deployed to Kuwait, Iraq, north Africa, and Afghanistan. After receiving an honorable discharge, Peggy began fully pursuing his music career and chose to settle in Baltimore, a city whose underground and experimental music scene he viewed as being the perfect fit for the music he was seeking to make and would enable him to grow as an artist. Provocative and unapologetically himself, Peggy approaches making music from experiences and a perspective that are entirely his own, giving his music a uniqueness that is seldom found in the mainstream today.

When asked about what motivates him in making music, JPEGMAFIA discusses how both extrinsic and intrinsic factors push him to create and produce the best product possible. In response to being asked if he thinks there is a commercial ceiling for his work, Peggy said: “Originally, my entire goal with music was for it to be my job. When I sit down to make a beat, I wanna know that I’m gonna get paid from it, and that I can pay my bills and still have money left over to be a person…I wanna make my music as popular as it can be, get it to many people, and just be an established force in hip-hop.” Of course, though, Peggy also describes how, whether he’s writing lyrics or making a beat or even performing on stage, that he finds it impossible to write, produce, or perform outside of himself and his true personality. Whether he’s sampling early 2000s Britney Spears or sounds from his favorite video games while growing up in the 90s, JPEGMAFIA incorporates the wholly unique things he enjoys and finds interesting into his creative process. Choosing to produce, write, mix, and master all of his music himself, Peggy is the sole figure present in the creative process of making his music, infusing a tangible individuality into the final product and subjecting his art to no one’s judgement but his own before its release to the world. For JPEGMAFIA, making music began as a release for the negative emotions and experiences he had while serving in the military as a young man. As a young artist, he made music simply for his own wellbeing and for the love he had for the process, not telling anyone he was even venturing down such creative paths. Even as he has gained more notoriety with each album release, Peggy says there is nothing more for him in life outside of making music. He views the process of making music as a necessity and that he is incapable of doing anything else. Peggy understands making music as essential for the preservation of himself and that he would be completely lost without it. Without music, Peggy believes he would be nothing, and he knows that, for himself, nothing is not an option. In an interview with the Cambridge Union, he said: “My music is the thing that makes me. It is the thing I live and die for.”  

As a rapper, he describes his stage persona as simply an exaggerated version of himself. This fact can be seen most presently on his second studio album Veteran, which was the record that first catapulted him to a wider audience outside of fans of underground rap (and introduced me to JPEGMAFIA). Viewing himself as incredibly cynical and as a child of the internet age, Veteran embodies these qualities in JPEMAFIA with its highly satirical and graphic lyrics relating to racism, homophobia, and the rhetoric of political leaders/commentators in the world today. With its head-spinning and experimental beats filled with samples and sounds from quite possibly anywhere you can imagine, Veteran proves itself to be incredibly cutting-edge and a challenging, intense listen. Veteran is a provocative and incredibly original album, clearly channeling so many of the unique qualities of an artist who seeks to give every ounce of his being to the music that is all he has in life. JPEGMAFIA is one of the most prominent artists within the experimental hip-hop genre today, and hopefully his completely unfiltered creativity can not only push his own art further but also expand and reshape the face of hip-hop and music as a whole.

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UjNTHSIqU8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF4cIXja-EA&t=572s

https://pitchfork.com/features/rising/get-to-know-jpegmafia-the-political-noise-rapper-whos-trolling-the-trolls/

https://www.nme.com/features/music-interviews/jpegmafia-lp-interview-age-britney-spears-rap-3084521