We have two of the most unique and experimental minds in hip-hop collaborating for a project. While hip-hop’s full of collab projects people were majorly hyped about, this one might take the crown. On one side, you have Danny Brown: one of the most interesting names in hip-hop who you’d know from earlier projects like XXX or his most lauded album, Atrocity Exhibition. And on the other side, you have JPEGMAFIA: definitely in a league of his own with projects such as Veteran, All My Heroes are Cornballs and LP! That last one was one of my favorite albums of 2021, and he even made two versions of it: Online and Offline (I liked Offline more, but Online’s still solid).
Upon hearing about them collaborating for an album, this seemed like a combo that would go great together like chocolate and peanut butter, red beans and rice, or the internet and cats. The first taste out of this came on an episode of Danny Brown’s podcast The Danny Brown Show where he had Peggy as a guest, and they previewed a track near the end of the episode (you should probably watch the whole episode anyway, it’s pretty hilarious) with “Lean Beef Patty.” And yes, that is a reference to popular fitness content creator LeanBeefPatty. As for the track itself even though it only runs at a minute and 45 seconds, it does go hard as soon the beat and synth beat drops.
Thus we got Scaring the Hoes… Vol. 1. Yep. Vol.1, meaning there’s gonna be more of this.
We got 14 tracks with all Danny and Peggy and only one feature from rapper Redveil. Plus you got tracks named “Steppa Pig”, “Garbage Pale Kids”, “Jack Harlow Combo Meal” and “Kingdom Hearts Key.” So did they succeed in scaring the hoes?
YES! YES, THEY DID. I know I’m jumping the gun on this soon but this is a very early contender for not only hip-hop album of the year, but just album of the year in general. This has a lot of their creativity and personality in beats, rhymes, flows and whatever weird things they can concoct. Take “Steppa Pig,” which has got some choice lines from Peggy:
These niggas act like I owe them
These niggas be dickridin’ for grown-ass men that don’t even know them
They don’t even come outside, don’t ever see mans late night like Conan
They off of that 2chan high, incels just can’t let it go like Frozen
Bet if I let off these shots, no games, you finna just dance like Gotenks
And from Danny as well:
Make you wanna crash out and say fuck еverything (Uh-uh)
But stuck to it like fly traps, no pockets swolе, no ice packs
Now ask your bitch, “Do you like that?” (Do you like that?)
My young niggas step for, like Cole, Tommy, and Pam (Get to steppin’)
Hell, both of them really got some excellent bars on every one of these tracks, and I don’t know where to start or finish but we got some highlights in here, like in “Garbage Pale Kids” from Peggy: (Caught that Raekwon, you should stick to the cream/ Servin’ these niggas like I’m Paula Deen. And Danny does have those weird but hilarious bars from rappers not rapping anymore, he might as well sell bathrobes and a line where he said ‘Eat ya Ass Like Canibus’ because we remember that one line from him way back. Also the sample from here is from a 1985 commercial for Nichiro, a Japanese meat packing company, and the ‘tennis’ sample is from a Nintendo Famicom commercial.
Speaking of samples, the next track “Fentanyl Tester” samples the classic Neptunes-produced track “Milkshake” by Kelis, mostly in the outro where it’s all sped up and you wouldn’t tell at first.
While I did say that both rappers brought out some good bars in here, I think JPEG has a leg-up by a small margin considering he does all the production and sometimes often start most of the songs here. Here’s some more bars from Peggy, this time from “Burfict!”
Drippin’ like Rudy, you know how I do
Stick for the mooliani’s
(Click, clack) Now I’m playing zombies
Choppas like NATO, that shit come in caseloads
Dogs cover they face, that bitch Mach-HommyFrank Lucas got my bitch feeling blue (Straight)
Crack in the booth
Feeling like Speed who gon’ stop me? Not youI heard niggas wanna attack my show
Bitch, do I look like Olivia Munn?
There’s a lot of tracks that I like but if I had to name ones that I keep going back to, the first one would be “KIngdom Hearts Key.” You figure something in here would have a sample from the games but it’s Disney, so I doubt they’d let that slide. But the sample here comes from the opening song to the anime Escaflowne, that being “Yakusoku wa iranai” by Maaya Sakamoto, which was produced by the legendary Yoko Kanno! Yes, that Yoko Kanno! Also, it’s the 2nd time he sampled something produced by her, the first being from Turn A Gundam on the song “Beta Male Strategies” from All My Heroes are Cornballs.
Oh and I love the way Redveil flows well into his verse during the last minute of it. Everything about the song sounds gorgeous and I love it so much!
“Orange Juice Jones” has a Michael Jackson sample going for it, and we got this one line from Danny: (Off that Britney Spears, got me dancing like I lost control // I done just popped me a double, I might be in trouble // I’m looking like Space Jam, damn). Oh, and “Shut ‘Yo Bitch Ass Up / Muddy Waters” is basically one part Danny Brown solo track and the other half a solo JPEGMAFIA track, and that’s it. It does have a solid beat in both parts, tho.
“Run The Jewels” was a fairly short track, like a minute long, that does manage to fit JPEG and Danny belting some quick rhymes here and there. “HOE (Heaven on Earth)” with its gospel-like production and its chorus at the end just moved me on how amazing it sounds.
Scaring the Hoes, Vol. 1 manages to surpass my expectations and more. This is a very creative and fun album with two of my favorite rappers collaborating and they get all the way weird, creative, dynamic and it works! This is like how I feel about the anime Pop Team Epic. You expect some weird shitposty vibes and all that but you get all of that with a bit of creativity and effort, giving you get some great results with it.
FINAL VERDICT: BUY IT. Well, it did its job and scared the hoes.
SCARING THE HOES, VOL.1 is on AWAL Recordings and is available on digital download and streaming services. CD, cassette and vinyl are up for pre-orders and is set to come Summer 2023. Merch website is here.