84
84. All My Heroes Are Cornballs - JPEGMAFIA (2019)
Rap
All My Heroes Are Cornballs is the rap album for the Adderall Generation. It changes direction almost constantly, shifting drastically across about every spectrum imaginable once every 30 to 45 seconds. But unlike that annoying friend in the passenger seat who won’t stop changing radio stations, these segues aren’t exactly abrupt or obnoxious, they’re intriguing. There becomes a growing curiosity that develops rapidly amidst each stanza as to what could possibly come next.
Rapper and producer Barrington Hendricks, AKA JPEGMAFIA, has an uncanny awareness of the first potential moment at which boredom could set in within each composition and it’s at that precise point that he immediately pulls the plug and pivots, often into a completely different sphere of influence. Ironically, according to Hendricks, “disappointment” was the driving factor in the creation of the album, so each of these micro-movements may be intentionally manipulated to kill them off before they can reach satisfying maturity. But whatever disappointment that might cultivate in the listener is counteracted by the eager anticipation of “where could he possibly go from here?”. Whatever the motivations behind the album, the result is an expertly concocted sensory overload, one that’s dependably chaotic, convincingly intentional and ultimately completely cohesive, perhaps exactly because of its incongruity.
Conceptually, Hendricks has an arsenal of lethal tools at his disposal here, including humor, political frustration, social observation and personal experience to weave this intricate patchwork together. In a few corners of the album, behind the panoply of auditory stimuli, there can be found a good deal of downright wicked lyricism and the spitting chops to match. There are also electric guitars, thumping drum and bass beats and a flute. In fact, it might be easier to list the things that can’t be found here. All My Heroes Are Cornballs gracefully straddles the line between experimental and accessible, and it’s instilling hope for the future of rap.
*image; cover art for the album All My Heroes Are Cornballs by the artist JPEGMAFIA