With Her Newest Album “Jp4”, Junglepussy Proves We Can All Be The Main Attraction

The first time I heard Junglepussy’s signature flow was on accident, within my Spotify Daily Mix, as I caught her rapping about finding love at my personal heaven-on-earth: Trader Joe’s. The track, aptly titled “Trader Joe”, the ninth song from her second studio album “Jp3”, released in 2018, features the best chorus of any song I’ve ever heard, crooning “We don’t fuck he just pick me up from Trader Joe’s/Carry all my groceries and lick on all my toes.” Yeah, and by Junglepussy standards, that’s pretty tame. While I can’t promise that you’ll find the love of your life while reaching over someone to grab the last bunch of organic kale or while stocking up on Trader Joes’ chocolate hazelnut cookies (which are seasonal and officially in stock as of the last time I was at Trader Joe’s so do yourself a favor and go after you finish this article), I can promise that your life is made better by a few Junglepussy lyrics. 

Indeed, Junglepussy, the stage name of Brooklyn-born Shayna McHale, has built an entire ethos around the concept that sex appeal and humor can coexist, and she does it better than anyone else. While this idea itself isn’t new or particularly radical, it is worth mentioning that within the popular music landscape of the moment, it is difficult to find an artist who seamlessly integrates sex-positivity and normalizes female pleasure without making it the only thing they’re capable of discussing. Like, in the case of someone like Ariana Grande, who oscillates between being the ex-Nickeloden star-turned-singer who wears cat ears while executing perfect vocal runs, and the raunchy popstar who sings about the joys of sixty-nining. It’s a confusing mix which gives the impression of utilizing sex as a means of making Grande herself more interesting; it’s something chosen for shock value rather than lyrical content.

But for Junglepussy, this brash, fun, sexy attitude seems tailor-made, reflected with an ease only capable of someone for whom these subjects are completely natural. Her newly released studio album, “Jp4”, out Oct. 23, is the perfect mix of infectious hip-hop beats and brazen lyrics, and, while retaining her trademark shamelessness, marks a noted progression into deeper subject matter undiscussed on her previous albums. 

Clocking in at ten songs and 28 minutes, the album is a quick listen, but that doesn’t diminish its punch. The entire project is buoyed by her quick-witted one-liners and effortless delivery. For example, on “Main Attraction”, the album’s second track, she raps to a prospective lover, "It must've hurt/When I rubbed your fuckin' face down in the dirt/Know it might look new to you, but I did it first/Pussy berserk, I made him pay for all my merch,” or on “Telepathy”, the following track, when a frustrated Junglepussy raps to her current fuckboi, “No more drunk sex in your Porsche/I’m my own snack/Why you brought me to the store?” 

This is music made for listening to with your friends while assuring each other that you’ll never call him back. Like, for real this time. In fact, top to bottom, I can’t think of another album in recent memory that makes me feel like a bad bitch in quite the same way. And after the year we’ve had, I think we could all use some of that energy. 

Part of what makes the album work is that while it’s definitely got its fair share of bangers —“Main Attraction”, and “Morning Rock”, insert hilarious brush-and-spit noises before sassily leveling with the listener, “What a waste of this toothpaste/Brushing my teeth only to smile in your face.” Above all “Stamina”, which features Gangsta Boo of Three 6 Mafia fame and whose lyrics are so dirty you can look them up for yourselves but which features the memorable chorus “Freak bitch/Do you have the stamina”—the project also allows notable moments of careful introspection and a level of candor not often welcomed within commercial hip-hop. 

These moments hit the listener suddenly and refresh the album from simply feeling like one extended diss-track (although I’d be fine with that, for what it’s worth). Most notably of these is “Arugula”, the LP’s eighth offering (and my personal favorite), which serves as the album’s moral compass. With a refrain that includes the painful admission, “Made sure to tell ya friends you know me/‘Cause I'm famous/Congratulations maybe I'm jaded/I could've sworn I seen you/Loving things you said you hated/Wasn’t I the one to make you/Love the shit you hated.” Surprise! It turns out even your strongest friends get sad, and this moment in the album becomes somehow more reassuring than anything preceding it; it’s like letting you in on a secret, and, importantly, gives the listener permission in their own lives to be upset and confident and sexual and pensive and bold all in the same breath; a reminder that I somehow find myself having to be reminded of more often than I’d like to admit. 

Indeed, on a larger scale, Junglepussy’s lyrics, while never straying from their signature bubbly delivery, touch on themes of exploring one’s sexuality, female sexualization and over-sexualization, female pleasure, the cultivation of healthy and loving romantic relationships, and the development of self-respect, specifically as these relate to black femininity and black womxnhood; themes which were introduced by hip-hop pioneers like Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill and Missy Elliott, and expanded upon by notable contemporaries like Megan Thee Stallion. While “WAP” became the sex anthem of a generation this past summer, Junglepussy’s “Jp4” is a whole album of “WAP”,and in my opinion, it’s a whole lot better. 

So take it from me, or take it from Junglepussy herself, who raps on “Out My Window”, “This remind me of the time I realized I'm that bitch/It was a beautiful day birds was chirpin’ and shit.” And now, thanks to “Jp4”, we can all be that bitch.