There are Maxo Kream songs that, at a certain point, make you realize you’ve been holding your breath. That’s partly due to the Houston rapper’s iron grip on syllables: Listening to his drumline-precise cadence on “Greener Knots,” from 2021’s Weight of the World, or the way he dodges between the drums and bass on “Bussdown,” from 2018’s Punken, feels like watching a tennis match at twice the speed. Once you’ve acclimated to his particular staccato, you’ll register the lidless stare with which he details lives lived in constant conflict, his characters either scraping by in the nick of time or meeting some unfortunately prescribed ending. At his most powerful, Maxo is one of those writers who knows full well how sound can sell a message.
His least engaging work is beige and repetitive, all spark but no energy. Though 2024’s Personification had the air of a landmark mid-career take-stock record, it often felt as though Maxo hit the record button and stepped into the hallway, checking his phone while some deflated copy of himself went through the motions. For O.Y.N., Maxo links with JPEGMAFIA, a similarly intense figure whose latest work, the incongruously titled EXPERIMENTAL RAP, also suffers from a misunderstanding of his strengths. Both are talented artists, seemingly in search of something new, and their team-up offers each a chance to press a big reset button.
For the first three songs, at least, they kinda nail it. Maxo sounds invigorated, finding the middle ground between Personification’s slack delivery and the tonal pliability that made Brandon Banks and Weight of the World so immediate. He’s full of venomous anger on intro “6 Months Clean,” detailing the dire life circumstances that torpedoed his longest bout of sobriety over JPEG’s earsplitting snares and caterwauling sirens. “O.Y.N.” is the strongest track on the record, pitting a heavenly opera sample against a metallic trap pattern. JPEG’s arrangement evolves tastefully, deploying acoustic drums, jittery keyboards, and a wailing guitar solo mixed low enough to become pure texture. Maxo weaves doleful verses about a grim sort of mentorship, helping his young disciples work through “the kind of shit that you can’t tell your mom about.” Finally, “30 N Dirty” rounds out the opening suite, with Maxo talking glorious shit from deep within a cloud of JPEG’s reverberant, shuddering synths and Memphis-indebted bassline. When it ends, you might be a touch winded, pushed sideways by the unavoidable mass.
Then they bring the momentum to a crashing halt. “This Shit Going On,” which starts as a boilerplate flex jam and ends as an uncomfortable sex jam, is nowhere near as thought-through as the previous three. It’s JPEG’s most minimal beat, but the organ melody and all-consuming bass feel haphazardly pasted together, sounding neither restrained nor tense. The song’s 2:40 run time flies by if you’re distracted, but it drags tremendously if you’re even remotely paying attention. If Maxo listing the female rappers he wants to fuck doesn’t leave a bad taste in your mouth, just wait for the tacked-on chopped-and-screwed coda, which reiterates his point in an even sweatier way. They say you have to write the bad songs to get to the good ones, but it’s important to recognize when the cutting-room floor is looking a little too bare.
After being so brutally and unfortunately derailed, the album doesn’t really recover. Its remaining five songs seem to appear at random, never gelling into a cohesive force or threading a narrative. The duo still finds its electric chemistry on occasion, like the streaking, strobing “Fake Jeezy,” which strips classic drill and crunk templates for parts but retains their bullet-sweating vigor. The distortion that rips through the Dirty-South-meets-dungeon-synth lurch of “How I’m Coming” sounds especially good on overtaxed car speakers, even if the track itself feels inconsequential in the sequence. Maxo tries his hand at a second boudoir banger with the groaningly titled “Cum Over,” and it’s okay, but the More Life-era Drake beat and syrupy R&B hook don’t register as being part of the same project.
“How TF I’m Lucky” once again tries to right the ship, and mostly succeeds—but then the record just ends. It’s a great return to acidic Maxo, rejecting the idea that good fortune simply happens to people. The best Maxo Kream songs acknowledge the blood that animates success, whether it’s coursing through veins like a surging current or spilled on the ground after the removal of another obstacle. There’s a great EP here, and the seed of a fruitful collaboration, and O.Y.N.’s best moments feel like both a triumphant return to form and a push into the future from both Maxo and JPEG. But the album can’t shake the vibe of a Patreon exclusive dropped simply as proof of life or clout or studio access, a minor curiosity that disappears before it can find itself.
