By René Huels, Contributor to The London Financial
It’s March 28th, 2022. A typical London day passes by as many wait to see what they know will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience later that night.
“My name is JPEG muthafuckin’ MAFIA” he says into the ever-moving sea of concertgoers, screaming back in gratitude and excitement for the inbound performance. From youngsters from the age of 16 to even a few senior citizens, London showed up and showed out for one of the most defining and original voices (and producers) in modern hip hop. An at times divisive and controversial figure, JPEGMAFIA, or ‘Peggy’ as his fans and friends call him, has worked tirelessly for over a decade, switching monikers, dodging Twitter cancel-culture-vultures and grinding away at his craft to be able to reach his critical mass. The true definition of a “solo act”, JPEG conducts his shows entirely by himself; he is his own DJ, his own hype man and the only person on stage. Peggy has cultivated a large following from all walks of life, with a deep appreciation for his unique and “weird” sound, and O2 Kentish Town goes down as one of his largest headlining solo shows to date, letting those in attendance witness an artist in his prime.
While I could detail each and every moment from the show, there would simply be too much to write about, so I will go over the highlights of the experience.
A packed venue, everyone chomping at the bit for the “Left-Wing Hades” himself to appear. As he nonchalantly swaggered onto the stage, with his Muay Thai shorts, Doc Martens, NTS Radio Jacket and Bandana, the crowd booms with applause and praise… and Peggy hadn’t even pressed play on the first song. JPEG welcomes his fans and gives a brief warning on how his voice has been a bit shot as of late. Despite his raspy and scratchy tone, Peggy saunters to his laptop and the explosive, glitchy intro to the 2019 release “Jesus Forgive Me, I Am A Thot” erupts out of the venue’s sound system. Wasting no time, the crowd began to jump and mosh, and being caught dead-centre, my group of friends and I were almost immediately separated. The chaos is abruptly halted for a moment as everyone absorbs the beautiful chords and melodies in the verse and chorus, singing their hearts out alongside JPEG. “I can’t feel my face on god, SMH no ASMR!” goes the crowd, all the while continuing the kinetic energy and jumping up and down. His voice altered by his autotune, Peggy roars the song’s hook with the confidence of a thousand veteran musicians, “You better count your blessings for real! AMEN!”.
As “Jesus Forgives Me” fizzles out, Peggy, along with the crowd, shouts “PRAISE THE MUTHAFUCKIN’ LORD” and the cheers and vocal appraisals start up again. This was only the beginning. With little preamble between songs, Peggy returns to the “homebase” of his laptop, takes a healthy swig of water and informs the crowd of the title of his next song, one of his recent singles, “HAZARD DUTY PAY!”. The ingeniously chopped sample of The Winans’ and Anita Baker’s “Ain’t No Need To Worry” rises, all the while the crowd sings along and Peggy dances on stage. As everyone anticipates the energy about to be released, the verse hits and we all scream “If he fall on the floor let him go! GONE!” and the real moshpit starts, with ripple effects being felt throughout the crowd. Everyone running, jumping and shoving as the song plays, parts of the crowd nearly getting knocked over, with some of us having to use our bodies as a counter weight to push back so no one falls down.
Without an ounce of energy being lost, the concert raps and screams along to a few more songs from Peggy’s latest album “LP!”, such as “DIRTY!” and an A cappella rendition of “BALD!” until JPEG decided to take it back a few years and began to play some fan favourites from his 2018 release “Veteran”. The song “Thug Tears” is a stand out and a personal favourite of mine. Peggy again walks back to his laptop and hits play. The purple hue from his stage lights glow across the venue, the spattered in kick drum, a strange clicking reverberating all around the hall, and a torn apart, unintelligible vocal sample echoes through everyone as Peggy hypes up the crowd, running up and down the stage screaming “WHAT! WHAT! WHAT!”. Suddenly, we get some plucky/glitchy chords and Peggy’s famous producer tag “You think you know me” is heard. “WEED! CRACK AND DOPE!” JPEG screams in tandem with the audience, taking a moment to pause and stare in amazement. Another one of his producer tags, “Damn Peggy”, is screamed back at him, before the verse properly starts. “All I need is rest” we all yelled, barely getting a moment to recover our breaths in between rapping along to the lyrics and ad-libs.
Peggy always switches a few songs in his setlist in and out, so unless you were obsessively going over the setlist for every prior show, what would come next would have been a mystery. Peggy brilliantly performed a few more fan favourites such as the fiery, Kenny Beats produced “Puff Daddy”, his low-key feature on BROCKHAMPTON’s “CHAIN ON”, “How To Build A Relationship” a lesser known but still beloved song produced by Flume and, of course, his famous cover of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe”.
We then arrived at another song from his latest release “WHAT KIND OF RAPPIN’ IS THIS?”. An ethereal and beautiful harmony starts up, and Peggy yelps out to the crowd “Wrist, Wrist, Ice, Ice”. The song’s bass notes boom suddenly and the crowd sings along, “Now I’m looking at this one, now I’m looking at that one, now I’m looking all over the world”. While the song itself is not nearly as sonically intense as many others in the setlist, Peggy didn’t let up for a second, still screaming his raps as loud as he could, the audience barely remembering the fact he had mentioned his voice was broken. Rocking side to side, Peggy powers through his shot vocal cords and lets the crowd vibe with him to the illustrious Fred Hammond sample that makes up the song’s melody and harmony.
Every touring artist has a staple song that they perform at all their shows, and for JPEGMAFIA, this song was “1539 N. Calvert”, again from his 2018 album “Veteran”. The most amped up and energetic the crowd had been, the 808 hits, a red tint lights up the stage, the beautiful and heavy instrumental soars, the crowd essentially sprinting within the massive moshpit and Peggy hyping the crowd with a repeated “WHAT! WHAT!” as well as a crowd chant that he encourages at every performance of this song. “Let me hear you say FUCK YOU PEGGY!” he screams, the whole time running from each side of the stage. The crowd obliges and bellows out with ferocity, “FUCK YOU PEGGY!” before the verse starts. “I need all my bitches same colour as Drake, if they not then they gettin’ rocked” we all shouted at once, reaching our apex of volume, not one member of the audience missing a beat or word, even while jumping as high as we could and moshing as hard as humanly possible. As the song progresses towards the second verse, Peggy slows the beat down, a move he pulls for every performance of the song. The moshes come to a grinding halt as we all slowly utter “I need a bitch with long hair like Mike C-Town”, before immediately picking the pace up and running full-speed again.
As Peggy takes another swig from his water bottle and pauses for a moment to catch his breath, a few member of the audience began shouting out “Fuck Morrissey!”. As Peggy catches on, he walks back to his laptop and “I Cannot Fucking Wait Till Morrissey Dies” plays. The lights cut out, and those of us unfamiliar with the live version of the song take a second to listen to the extended intro, with its bright synths and rattling drums. Then, the rest of the song starts, bright white beams from the stage lights spinning all around the venue and all of us shrieking in unison “Tom, Varg, Morrissey, a bunch of timid white boys who can’t fuck with me”. The moshes start back up and more energy is given out by both Peggy and the audience to power a small city for a year. The song continues, a gunshot sample is played and the lights cut out again. As the outro starts playing Peggy walks back to his laptop and before playing his last few songs, he thanks the audience whole heartedly for the support they’ve shown. One person gives him an ecstatic “I LOVE YOU” and he gives one back, and before he can finish his thank you, we all begin screaming out “PEGGY! PEGGY! PEGGY!”.
There were a few songs I was hoping to hear at the concert such as “Beta Male Strategies”, “TIRED, NERVOUS AND BROKE!” and “Man Purse”, and while I was unfortunately not privy to some of these songs, one song I knew that he would perform and was extremely excited for was “Baby I’m Bleeding”, the final highlight I’ll reflect on.
After his thank yous to the audience, Peggy hovers over his laptop and says “This next song is called… umm…” and as he searches for the song on his laptop, without finishing his sentence, the song begins. The broken 2 syllable sample of Taste of Dream’s “Cool Like Ice Hot Like Fire” cracked through the speakers, bending and shifting in pitch with a kick drum coming in every so often. The crowd wandered around, making space for the mosh pit, knowing the sheer brutality that was about to erupt. Another strange sample, a single word from a scene from “Batman V Superman” hovers around the hall, almost intimidating the audience. I stood with my gaze towards the ceiling, awaiting the beat drop and the moshpit to swoop in and swallow me and my girlfriend into its open maw. Chants from the crowd, and a distorted version of Peggy’s “You think you know me” producer tag interrupts again. The beat glitches out and finally the snare comes in, a cue to everyone that it’s nearly show time. Suddenly, a millisecond of silence, and JPEG shouts with his chest “PEGGY WHERE YOU BEEN AT?” and the pit rushes in. Everyone chimes along with “Gettin’ all this promo, when it comes to money bet these pussies is a no show” and a now, slightly exasperated Peggy powers through, collapsing at one point during a break in the song, spitting onto the stage and viciously delivering his verse “it’s ironic you pressed for a cooking”. The break in the middle ends, Peggy gets up and we all scream “WHITE BOY BETTA PUT HIS HANDS UP!” with excitement, finger guns in the air.
As JPEG played out the last couple songs, the audience begged for an encore. From where I stood I saw a stagehand talking to him, and as he came back on stage, he broke the unfortunate news that he had run out of time. To make up for it however, he played an unreleased song featuring Danny Brown as we all bid the self proclaimed “Dark Skin Manson” a farewell.
While there were many amazing moments I haven’t covered, such as the explosive and ground-shaking moshpit during “Real Nega”, the wholesome performance of “TRUST!” where Peggy joined a section of the crowd, the suave and swag of “COVERED IN MONEY!”, or the audience singing along to the irresistible melodies in the chorus of “Free The Frail”, this concert was multiple life changing experiences all packed into about an hour or so. By the time the unreleased song had ended, the crowd dispersed into their groups, I met back up with my friends I came along with and we said our goodbyes to the people we met at the concert.
There’s a song from Peggy’s 2016 album “black ben carson” called “ALL CAPS NO SPACES”, and after this concert, I truly believe that title encapsulates JPEGMAFIA concerts perfectly. It demands your attention, and leaves no space for the faint of heart. While calm at times, this crowd and this music will chew you up and spit you out with a broken leg if you didn’t have the gumption to join in on the controlled and supervised violence. I walked away with some merch and an even bigger appreciation for not only JPEGMAFIA’s music, but for any artist that goes out of their way to put on a truly unique show, in every sense of the word.
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