Every Junglepussy project begins with a statement of intent. “Want Some Mo’,” the opener to her 2014 debut Satisfaction Guaranteed, turns a one-night stand into a celebration of her prowess in the bedroom and on the mic. “Spicy 103 FM” and “State of the Union”—the intros to her 2015 album Pregnant With Success and 2018’s Jp3—use breakups as a platform to reclaim power over her narrative. On 2020’s Jp4 starter “Bad News,” she predicts that for all the influence she’s exerted over the game, the world won’t “give me props until the casket drops.” Eight years into her career as an independent New York polymath with a taste for genre-bending and Trader Joe’s, she was tired of waiting for her due respect.
“Critiqua,” from her latest project JP5000, is the first opener since her debut not to start on the defensive. Her voice is collected and focused into a deep alto that cuts across producer Bohemia Lynch’s thudding drums and banjo plinks to address the critics and exes: “Earn my respect, held down the day shift/Pregnant with success/And you know what they did?/Tryin’ to test something so sacred.” Adversaries are within Junglepussy’s sight, but her claims unfold like self-actualization more than targeted gripes. Though the whip-smart energy of her past work is gone, she doesn’t sound tired or spent; she sounds content, even happy, to make her own crown. The thousand-yard stare bars add an air of nonchalance without diluting her searing wit or sense of purpose.
Junglepussy has never shied away from a melody or hook, but Jp3 and Jp4 featured nearly as much singing as rapping. Aqueous riddims like “Ready 2 Ride” and the bouncy pep of “Morning Rock” lend themselves to airy vocals, a vibe that JP5000 quickly jettisons. In a similar spirit as flex-worthy projects like Tyler, the Creator’s Call Me If You Get Lost and Milwaukee rapper Lakeyah’s My Time, the emphasis is back on beats and bars alone. On the surface, JP5000 is the closest thing to a mixtape Junglepussy’s ever released—its five tracks are lean, loose bursts of energy. But she’s already released some of the fiercest and most pleasingly indulgent music coming out of New York in the last decade. What’s different here is the focus granted by her vocal shift, firm without rising above indoor volume. It gives her ever-present barbs an icier feel than usual: “Don’t give me side-eye as I shapeshift,” she asserts on “Movie Screen,” unbothered and above it all. It sounds like she could clear a room with a smirk.
Tone adjusted, Junglepussy’s words exude the unnerving calm and clarity that come with years of refinement. “Movie Screen” bubbles and snaps with thoughts of perseverance before pulling the rug out from under the haters anyway (“Keeping you mad at me is such an easy plan”). “Foreign Exchange” depicts a relationship that begins in the crowd at a Highline Ballroom show for the titular band and deteriorates into cheating and social media posturing (“Are you typing about ‘Protect a Black woman’?/Don’t have a clue, just clout”). On “Raqueletta,” she’s lusting after a European boy toy, sending him perfume-scented letters and counting the minutes until “big dude make my problems micro.” These songs aren’t private thoughts, yet they share an intimacy akin to internal monologues or drafted DMs. There’s a noticeable lack of sex raps compared to Junglepussy’s earlier work, but her other modes—tender, vicious, vulnerable—receive room to expand and round out the Jp Experience.
That experience is aided by some of the best beats Junglepussy has ever chosen. All five are loops with deep drums on the downbeat, but they each dovetail with Jp’s voice in distinct ways. Nick Hakim pits an operatic violin sample against twinkling keyboards on “Movie Screen,” creating a horror-flick soundtrack for Jp to slash to ribbons. Bohemia Lynch and New York-via-Baltimore producer Suzi Analogue bend synths into patterns that strobe and seethe on “Foreign Exchange” and “Raqueletta,” respectively. Virginia producer Døøf mixes horns and wind chimes into the cocksure strut of closing track “Mystical,” another opportunity for Jp to assert her earned self-reliance.
JP5000 revisits well-worn topics in the Junglepussy songbook—claims to her legacy, short-lived romance—but they’ve never landed quite like this, and her evolution mirrors the morphing traditionalism of New York’s underground scene. When, at the end of “Mystical,” she announces, “You stuck on the damn trends/I’m top of the mountain, meditating topless/I transcend,” the words linger like an incantation: Junglepussy is inviting the world to revel in her self-fulfilling prophecy.
