Barrington DeVaughn Hendricks (Born October 22, 1989), better known as JPEGMAFIA (AKA Peggy, AKA Devon Hendryx, AKA Buttermilk Jesus, AKA DJ Half-Court Violation...), is an American rapper, singer and producer known for his eclectic, experimental, and sometimes abrasive approach to both lyricism and production.
Interested at music from an early age, he first began producing at age 15 and took up rapping when he found that he couldn't market his beats. He later enlisted in the US Air Force at age 18, and released albums under the name Devon Hendryx while stationed in Japan (including Dreamcast Summer Songs, which has since been called a proto-vaporwave classic).
In 2015, he moved to Baltimore, where he changed his alias to JPEGMAFIA and released a mixtape entitled Communist Slow Jams. Just one month later, he would release his debut album Black Ben Carson, which boasted a more fast-paced and noisy sound. In 2018, he followed this up with the more experimental album Veteran, which received widespread acclaim and greatly elevated his status. He has released several more albums to continued acclaim — 2019's All My Heroes Are Cornballs, 2021's LP!, and 2023's Scaring the Hoes, the lattermost a collaborative album with Danny Brown.
JPEGMAFIA is also noted for his militaristically left-wing views, his love of Professional Wrestling (to the extent of one of his producer tags being sampled from the opening of Edge's theme), and his strange, oft-surreally-humorous song titles (including hits like "I Just Killed a Cop Now I'm Horny" and "I Cannot Fucking Wait Until Morrissey Dies").
Discography:
As Devon Hendryx- Dreamcast Summer Songs (Mixtape, 2009)
- Generation Y (Mixtape, 2010)
- Joechillworld (Mixtape, 2011)
- Lisa (Mixtape, 2011)
- ❤/Heart Emoji (EP, 2012)
- The Rockwood Escape Plan (Mixtape, 2012)
- The Ghost-Pop Tape (Mixtape, 2013)
- Communist Slow-Jams (Mixtape, 2015)
- Darkskin Manson EP (EP, 2015)
- Darkskin Manson (Mixtape, 2015)
- Black Ben Carson (Album, 2016)
- The 2nd Amendment (Collaborative album with Freaky, 2016)
- Veteran (Album, 2018)
- All My Heroes Are Cornballs (Album, 2019)
- EP! (EP, 2020)
- EP2! (EP, 2021)
- LP! (Album, 2021)
- Scaring The Hoes, Vol. 1 (Collaborative album with Danny Brown, 2023)
JPEGMAFIA provides examples of:
- Album Title Drop: In Black Ben Carson. Almost appears in "Neon Kitchen", off the album JOECHILLWORLD."Greetings miss, how do you do? The honor is mine/They call me Joey D. Chills, and I noticed you’re fine"
- All Caps: His name is almost always stylized like this (as described in "ALL CAPS NO SPACES" off Black Ben Carson). Very common for song and album titles as well.
- Anti-Police Song: Several. Of note is "I Just Killed a Cop Now I’m Horny", which drew controversy for including a sample of an actual cop getting murdered.
- Arc Symbol: A mouse pointer features frequently in his visual artwork while his own personal logo is a JP stylized simliarly to the PlayStation logo.
- Author Appeal: His lyrics and samples frequently include references to pro wrestling, video games, late 90's / early 2000's pop music and anime.
- Author Catchphrase: Multiple.
- "It's nasty!", which is almost always appears at the beginning or end of verses where he's a featured artist, and only rarely appears on solo tracks.
- "Generation Y, 1989", referencing his generation and year of birth. Became an Abandoned Catchphrase in his later releases.
- "You think you know me", his producer tag (Sampled from Edge's walk-in theme, Metallingus).
- "Because I like JPEGs", another sampled tag.
- Baldness Angst: His twitter bio used to read “Don’t look at my hairline.”
- Berserk Button: Do not say that he looks like MC Ride.
- Birds of a Feather: With Danny Brown, as left-field experimental hip-hop weirdos. Part of what makes their team-up work so well.
- Category Traitor: Calling himself the "Black Ben Carson" implies he doesn't see said politician as one of these.
- Cop Killer: The protagonist of I Just Killed A Cop Now I'm Horny.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Many noted that the rather ‘’meaty’’ clapping on “Scaring the Hoes” sounds kinda like… something else. It isn’t that–—the clapping, saxophone, and shouting are all from a sample of a Dirty Beaches live performance.
- Fun with Acronyms: His debut album, Black Ben Carson, a Backronym for "BBC". "BBW" from All My Heroes Are Cornballs, conversely, stands for "Black Brian Wilson."
- Hipster: "Williamsburg" is a song dedicated to mocking the subculture gentrifying the eponymous neighborhood of Brooklyn.
- Idiosyncratic Cover Art: All studio albums released under the JPEGMAFIA moniker has a black mouse pointer on the cover art.
- Intentionally Awkward Title: This is kinda his thing. He says that if you can’t enjoy the song because you can’t look past the title, that’s your problem, not his.
- Lucky Charms Title: 😱/Panic Emoji and ❤️/Heart Emoji.
- Real Men Wear Pink: Has many lyrics painting himself in a feminine light, singing from a woman's perspective, or playing with the idea of gender roles. He's also outspoken about his love for all kinds of music, including female pop stars and boy bands. He cites Hanson as the first record he ever bought and a major influence. Much of the promotional photos for All My Heroes Are Cornballs, including the cover itself, have him wearing flowing gowns."I flew out the country/Borderline dressing in drag"
- Sampling: Gets in some really weird ones, including a version of Taylor Swift's "Delicate" that's so slowed down as to be incomprehensible, a chopped-up Gundam theme song, and turning Avril Lavigne's "Losing Grip" into this
. - Self-Deprecation: Much of the promotional material of All My Heroes Are Cornballs was Peggy referring to it as a "DISAPPOINTMENT" presumably to manage expectations after Veteran increased his profile.
- Sensory Abuse: Edges into this fairly often. There's the usual offenders like heavy bass-boosting, but there's weirder stuff like putting creepy mouth sounds in the background of a track, or sampling a creaky gate. The visual album for The Ghost-Pop Tape includes a lot of off-putting imagery.
- Shout-Out: Even more so than other rappers. These are most often directed at Pro-Wrestlers, but Batman is a close second (even naming one of his albums after the man who shot Bruce Wayne's parents, and later comparing himself to Damien Wayne).
- Softer and Slower Cover: His cover of “Call Me Maybe.” Also counts as The Cover Changes the Gender.
- Stylistic Suck: "Scaring the Hoes", in keeping with the track's theme, has a beat built around live handclaps and a honking sax solo.
- Take That!: Towards everyone. Targets include Drake, Donald Trump, Tekashi69, Lena Dunham, The cast of Friends, Steven Universe of all things... the list goes on.
- Take That, Critics!: “They be fucking up my lyrics on Genius, then these pussy ass critics repeat it” on “Bald!” He’s also a documented hater of Pitchfork.
- Title Track: "Black Ben Carson", "All My Heroes Are Cornballs" and "Scaring the Hoes."
- The Whitest Black Guy / No True Scotsman: His feature on “black enuff” with Redveil, which lambasts these tropes and various false dichotomies about black identity.
