Baltimore, Maryland’s JPEGMAFIA doesn’t currently have a considerable platform; transmitting from the margin, in part, gives his music its power.
“N*ggas are dropping like flies and have been for years,” he tells me via email. “And no rapper wants to take a firm stance for fear of backlash. But since I ain’t no fucking body, I’ll say what a lot of good honest hard working n*ggas won’t, or can’t say.”
As America hurtles headlong through a dire, pivotal moment, music can play a key role in shaping opinions and ideas—even if only at a grassroots level, even if it is inflammatory and difficult.
JPEGMAFIA and collaborator Freaky assembled The 2nd Amendment in response to the public tumult that has been bubbling in America for years and has so violently boiled over in recent weeks.
“This EP is me and Freaky flipping Americas words on her and putting that bitch in the hot seat,” continues JPEGMAFIA via email. “I am used to making people upset and uncomfortable with my lyrical content when it comes to music. But there are some things stated on this album that I can probably never recover from. In the end though, they were our decisions and we stand by them.”
The resultant music is darkly humorous, angry, pitch black, and acerbic, an embodiment of the notion that the only way to deal with an absurd world is to meet it with equal absurdity.
“I hope when people hear this, it inspires them and they start to feel a sense of pride in their identity, whatever it may be,” JPEGMAFIA says of The 2nd Amendement, irony likely fully evident to a man who sequenced the songs “Hop Out The Pussy I’m 21” and “Let’s Hit A Lick On The White House!” as the project’s opening one-two punch. “I hope everyone enjoys the EP and I hope all u people that hate me so much continue to do so. I’m counting on it.”
