Joey Valence & Brae clash at the intersection of youth and adulthood without losing sight of who they are and who they wanna be on the tightly produced and vulnerable HYPERYOUTH.
Release date: August 15, 2025 | RCA Records | Instagram | Purchase/Stream
I’ve actually been thinking a lot about growing up lately. Nothing too deep, just acknowledging my age, where I’ve been and maybe where I’ll go. It all hits us eventually and while I think the most existential moments of that are in my past, I can’t say it won’t come up again. After all, I’m only a handful of years from 40.
Seems like Joey Valence & Brae are dealing with this too as their new album, HYPERYOUTH, is about growing up, but not too much according to the duo. That ‘but not too much’ does a lot of heavy lifting – hearing JVB for the first time last year on NO HANDS was nostalgic as hell, bringing floods of memories back like skating with my friends, being a hellion around my apartment complex, and Beastie Boys. It made me feel younger because it embodied pretty much the only thing that was important to me when I was younger: FUN. The title said it all – it was like showing off to whoever was around that you could ride your bike with no hands, invincible and free.
HYPERYOUTH is ever so slightly more grounded than NO HANDS, but still exhibits freedom through honesty. This is most evident on “LIVE RIGHT”, the most vulnerable song JVB have written so far. Over a skittering, poignant beat, Joey Valence & Brae speedrun the precipice of youth and adulthood with the impenetrable energy (‘Do a cartwheel off a building/I don’t really care ’cause I’m gonna land it‘) and the silencing, sobering realization of life (‘I’m kinda scared to admit I’m afraid of growing up/No one here wants to dance, things are changin’‘), but it’s all met in the middle with prevailing truths in simple gems like, ‘As long as I got my friends/Don’t want this shit to end‘ and ‘Pancakes for breakfast, oops missed the exit/I’m not even mad, I’m just happy that I exist‘. It’s really touching and emotionally centering, it got to me for sure. I also love the little nod to OutKast with Brae‘s ‘forever ever, forever ever‘ refrain.
There’s also “PARTY’S OVER”, which is more reflective with walking the line between being a kid (in mindset anyway) and grown up. The beat sounds like an album ender – slightly downtrodden, but not defeated. Joey Valence reflects on the rise of JVB and not wanting to grow up, assuming that a lot of fun ends when you do so (some of it does, but hey, I still play Halo at my age). Brae‘s more abstract with it, but both ultimately come to terms with the hook – ‘I kinda wanna stay here, but it’s time to move on/The party’s over now, it’s time to go home‘. This is a good time to mention both Joey and Brae sing a bit on this album and they sound great adding these new textures to their sound.
This alone already starts to show JVB as a more well-rounded act three projects in, not just pure party entropy… but if you DO want that, please know that not a damn thing has changed. “WASSUP” with JPEGMAFIA flailed out early on as HYPERYOUTH‘s first single and it was an eyebrow-raiser in the best way. Not only did Peggy bring his trademark hater energy (‘I’m makin’ bops, and all you make is shitty pop‘), but Valence went silly on the beat with a sample of Playa Poncho‘s “Whatz Up, Whatz Up” and an quick interpolation of Tag Team‘s “Whoomp! (There It Is)”, which are rap classics.
“BUST DOWN” is one of the hardest beats on the album (sampling what I think is some Pharrell production, but I can’t remember which song), featuring the best rapper with an iced-out Kirby chain ever, TiaCorine. She sounds great here, holding the same rhyme scheme for much of her verse with punchy pronunciation and really feeling herself – excited to see where she goes with her new project. Some of the lines are hard and timely (‘Sydney Sweeney call me and I’ll hang up‘), some are corny in a cute way (‘I’m half-amazin’ and half-Asian/I’m so good, you could say I’m amasian‘). Perhaps most surprising is Rebecca Black‘s feature on “SEE U DANCE” which is a pop monolith with JVB bigging up Daft Punk, mingling with ladies, and Black coming through with a glittery hook and breathy bridge.
HYPERYOUTH ends up being a complete package, not in the checklist sense, or even if it is, it’s all executed with so much heart that it doesn’t matter. The duo’s whole thesis since their beginning has been about making people move, have fun, and being true to themselves, all of which have been hugely apparent since I’ve known them and it’s refreshing. HYPERYOUTH shows an earnest concern with age creeping up on all of us, but ultimately rules that it’s really all about what you choose to do, think, and feel. This album along with Tyler, The Creator‘s DON’T TAP THE GLASS, which has a similar MO as does Tyler as an artist, reasserts that in the midst of all the bullshit, it’s important to let loose and not care about a damn thing else.
I don’t want the impression from this review to be that this is ALL HYPERYOUTH has to offer – I didn’t even cover Joey Valence & Brae‘s ode to love (“IS THIS LOVE”) or their braggadocious Michael Jackson tribute (“BILLIE JEAN”), or how they incorporate more EDM influences into this one. Just like NO HANDS, this album’s wall-to-wall bangers laced with some real sincerity that I hope JVB explore more of later. They even cleared sound clips of BMO from Adventure Time to accent the heartfelt core of the album and the fear of growing up, likely the first artist to do so in music (Hiatus Kaiyote doesn’t count since they just got the voice of BMO, Niki Yang, to record original, though referential lines for Love Heart Cheat Code).
For me, HYPERYOUTH helped me reaffirm where I’m at and what I do – some would call me immature at times or maybe even weird, but am I really, or am I simply animating what’s inside of me and has been since I was a kid? One hard truth we all learn growing up is that the grown-ups we had around us when we were kids didn’t know what the hell they were doing either, and on top of that they were shoved into boxes of expectations from society, their parents, their aspirations that forced them to neuter parts of themselves for maybe success. It’s sad and I don’t seek to repeat that; Joey Valence & Brae aren’t either and as Gen-Z party starters, that tells me the next generation in part will seek to not be shackled by that. And when you start to lose that unique fire to yourself, there’s albums like HYPERYOUTH to remind you how important that is.
