JPEGMafia raps in cruise control on I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU

He only started rapping because his beats were too experimental for any other artists to take up. And instead of compromising his confrontational sound for commercial appeal, he worked up the experimental hip-hop ladder himself, becoming respected by internet hip-hop nerds and other left-field rappers alike. Every album, it seemed, was crazier than the last: on each, niche politics references, random disses towards random artists, and sound collage-esque samples butted up against each other in aggressive, strange mashups that are equally exhilarating and confusing.

I Lay Down My Life For You had the potential to be his most independent, creative project, even among one of the most avant-garde discographies in hip-hop: it’s his first solo album since he left his label two years ago, it was released at the peak of his controversy in the public eye (mostly from working with the Nazi-leaning Ye, formerly known as Kanye West), and it was surprise-released on a Thursday. Seriously, who drops on a Thursday?

That isn’t what we got. Instead, I Lay Down My Life For You mostly sees JPEGMafia running at cruise control. Thankfully, his cruise control is still pretty good; despite its flaws, this album is still a great showing. But for an artist whose every work was brimming with intention and boldness, even Peggy’s occasional lapses into musical cliches on this album are disappointing.

Perhaps the defining signature of Peggy’s music is his characteristically wild production, and this latest album is as eclectic as any: he pivots from nu-metal to reggae to glitch on a dime, and it’s mostly a joy because of it. I Lay Down My Life For You sees tracks as varied as “JPEGULTRA!”, which is backed by a slowly-evolving jazz-funk sample that Peggy and featured artist Denzel Curry float effortlessly over, and “Don’t Put Anything On The Bible,” where semi-frequent collaborator Buzzy Lee turns two minutes of absolutely stunning chamber folk before Peggy even starts rapping.

But, for the first time, a lot of that variedness somehow feels predictable – or, at least, less interesting than normal. For example, a good chunk of these songs start with a recognizable pop or hip-hop sample (or, in one case, a sample of HBO’s Succession) that then gets chopped up to form the backbone of a beat. Others introduce an electric guitar solo in the second half to vary things up. These are cool tricks for a few tracks at best, but when they dominate much of the album, things start to feel a little boring – especially from an artist who has spent his career avoiding triteness like the plague. Sure, this would be any other rapper's wildest release. But, following up a discography of avant-garde hip-hop, it feels like Peggy entered into this album trying to sand off many of his rough edges – and it makes for a somewhat less exciting album as a result, although still a great one.

Unfortunately, that also brings out another deficiency: without the constant, overflowing creativity of his earlier work, Peggy’s lyrical shortfalls are more obvious.

JPEGMafia’s strength as a rapper has always been defined, at least in part, by the strength of his production. Especially near the later point of his career, some of his verses have felt more like sound poetry: the flow, relative to the beat, is more important than the words themselves. On Scaring The Hoes, Peggy’s exceptional collab album with Danny Brown from last year, Peggy reused bars, made a few too many chronically online references, and generally didn’t say much of substance – but the energy was so good that it doesn’t really matter. Similarly, I Lay Down My Life For You has a handful of witty and interesting bars, but for every such moment, there’s a litany of the same kinds of lyrics: asking haters why they’re hating if they’re broke, or asking fans why they’re riding his dick, or regurgitating hip-hop cliches that sound so inauthentic that they might as well be empty syllables. And those moments stand out more than they ever have on this album. There are some real struggle bars here: “I'm with my bi bitch, we being bipolar,” or “You keep yapping, I open my Cash App / I ball, head on the sack,” or the almost comically embarrassing “I'm so terminally online, goddamn, I gotta check myself”.

Mostly, that doesn’t matter. By design, Peggy’s lyrics have always come second to production. But when the production slumps, even the slightest bit, these bars feel so much more egregious.

Those shortfalls don’t permeate all of I Lay Down My Life For You, though: Peggy’s best performances come during the last leg of the album, when he finds the time to get introspective. During those tracks, he turns the temperature down and starts rapping more tenderly, sometimes being reduced to whispers, as he reflects on his career and past struggles, depression, flaws as a romantic partner, and past traumas. Even when he’s boasting, like he does on the rest of the album, it feels different over instrumentals inspired more heavily by classical music and folk than by industrial rock and boom bap. Peggy is in top form during these moments of introspection: his verses are at their most uncliched and heart-wrenching, his rapping is more dynamic, his beats are absolutely gorgeous. But these inward-looking moments make up only about a third of the album, and on the rest of it, he sounds less interested in music than he has in a long time. Minus these moments of affecting passion, I Lay Down My Life For You doesn’t feel like a stylistic shift or an evolution as much as it sounds like his normal self operating at 80 percent.

Amongst all of this criticism, I feel like I should reiterate that this album is pretty good – the beats are nice, the rapping is decently energetic and forceful. But in the context of Peggy’s discography, where he’s invariably flowed like all hell over the most original production in recent hip-hop memory, this falls a little flat. I Lay Down My Life For You is good – but it isn’t quite good enough.