Jpegmafia and Danny Brown: Scaring the Hoes review — freewheeling album from rap’s fringes

“It’s not for women” read the advertising strapline for Dr Pepper Ten in 2011, a low-calorie beverage designed to tempt men to start drinking diet sodas. It has now been discontinued. Does the same deserve to happen to US rappers Jpegmafia and Danny Brown’s joint album?

Scaring the Hoes’ questionable title is the hip-hop equivalent of the macho ad for the failed fizzy drink. A first sip, taken gingerly, reveals the presence of numerous garish additives, some stimulants and the catalysing ingredient of chaotic male energy. This all comes in the opening moments of “Lean Beef Patty”, a brief blast of a track with a tinny, sped-up sample of a P Diddy song called “I Need a Girl”, hyperactive rhythms and aggressively hollered rapping. The nutritious content appears to be nil. But the results have an insistently moreish quality.

The album is the product of two rogue minds from rap’s experimental fringes. Jpegmafia, who also goes by the un-rapper-like nickname Peggy, is originally from New York. He’s the one doing the hollering in “Lean Beef Patty”. Danny Brown, originally from Detroit, is his vocal foil, a live wire whose rap style has the needling intensity of a panic attack. Together they have conspired to make a record in the freewheeling, satirical spirit of George Clinton’s Parliament.

Jpegmafia handles the production. His beats are wilfully eclectic but meticulously arranged. “God Loves You” provocatively sets obscene storytelling to a thumping gospel-disco sample. “Run the Jewels” pays tribute to the eponymous old-school rap duo with a brief snatch of classic boom-bap. Songs pack as much acoustic stimulation into their brief durations as possible, from computer jingles to trumpet fanfares. The audio quality has a raw, dashed-off quality, with Brown at times sounding as though he’s literally phoning in his raps.

The latter recently announced that he’s going to rehab; proof, if it were needed, that closing track “Where Ya Get Ya Coke From?” isn’t a shout-out to Dr Pepper’s soft drink rival. But the song’s handbrake turns through Deep Purple samples, jittery percussion, Afro-jazz and pinpoint-fast rapping also serve to underline the album’s high-wire quality, a full-tilt reminder of rap’s outlaw character.

★★★★☆

‘Scaring the Hoes’ is released by AWAL Records