I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU

No one makes a song like Peggy. It just feels impossible. This is his 5th solo album and he continues to showcase a magical blend of exemplary production and an immensely idiosyncratic style. What is a Peggy song? To me, it is production that sounds as distorted as it does divine and at least one snippet or line that will worm its way into my head like I’m a Kennedy. I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU (or LIFE as I will refer to it from now on) follows this basic frame, but with unique enough results such that every song feels like its own special fever dream. It also has some of JPEGMAFIA’s most catchy songs yet and does so while featuring a refreshingly earnest infusion of rock into his usual sound. The combination of the two leads to some addictive moments that have had tik tok levels of airtime in my head since release.

Take the lead single of “don’t rely on other men” and its opening of rattling drums and an ingenious sample of Brian Cox from Succession—one of my favorite shows by the by. I would have expected Peggy to sample an iconic line when I found out he used a sample from Succession, but the song works all the better knowing he just used an essentially throw away line from the very first episode to make one of the best beats I have ever heard. The way he stretches “I hear you went down” to “down, down, down, down, down, down, etc.” and loops in this pulsating bass is beautiful. It feels as if he took Brian Cox, stretched him into Gumby-like goo, and built him into a massive frame that gives the illusion of stretching forever onward: Peggy then lovingly embeds little delicious sound bites within it and rides the subsequent wave for us to experience. Specifically, my brain constantly replays two samples: “need to stay in yo crib with your gamer pass” and “if the cops come around I’ll say que paso.” And everything else around it is just a shred of a song that you can’t help bopping your head along with. And that all was true just with the single: the album version ends with a glorious and heavenly transcendent flourish of instrumentals that feels like the perfect encapsulation of the infinite nature of the core sample as it ostensibly feels like it may just be stretched on forever. It is inherently a silly way to describe it, but that outro just so strongly resembles to me the stereotypical depiction of a character floating through space—think Bender in the Futurama episode where he becomes god.

LIFE is chock full of such scrumptious moments and another song that exemplifies it is “JPEGULTRA!” with Denzel Curry. From my very first listen, I was swiftly taken in with its triumphant trumpeting intro and Denzel’s booming in with a crisply articulated “Out the trenches for you flabbergasted, fat fucks.” He doesn’t let up for a second afterwards and continues to spit with the same bombastic swagger, all while the trumpets never stop their unvanquished bleating. And, without fail, my ears latch onto my favorite bar every time: “No matter which way you go, you’ll still be a square like a Rubik’s Cube.” It has no right to go that hard, but it does and Denzel delivers. Peggy follows Denzel up by coming in with a great feeling verse that just sounds like aural ambrosia with its stellar combination of Peggy’s catchiest spitting and some particularly soaring production. The song crests the wave of energy and crashes spectacularly around 2:15 when JPEG switches up his vocal delivery entirely and yells “This is my fight, I just woke up as a child of the light/ Jumped on the beat, had to tell it, ‘Goodnight’” as it sounds like he is fending off an unseen ambush. It just hits.

The album has many more wonderfully catchy moments, particularly on songs such as the delightfully musing “either on or off the drugs,” the rampaging “SIN MIEDO,” or the echoing brilliant light of “loop it and leave it.” The last one specifically is a moment of invigorating luminosity that is just a treat to listen to and an underrated gem on the album. Overall, a great listen that will likely be one of my top albums of the year if not my top. Last year Peggy was my #1 artist and so far I am enjoying this album I think as much as SCARING THE HOES.

Favorite Song: either on or off the drugs