Pennsylvania-born hip-hop duo Joey Valence & Brae – known for their high-octane blend of boom bap, EDM, and punk – enter a new era with maturity and the feeling of growing up, but never getting old, on their club-ready third album ‘HYPERYOUTH.’

Stream: ‘HYPERYOUTH’ – Joey Valence & Brae

Nobody’s too cool to dance. Please just let yourself go for a moment and enjoy yourself.

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Growing up used to mean something. Not just wrinkles and sagging skin or feeble bones and crossword puzzles, but something internal – like discovering your true self.

Never letting the party die though so many people want to see it end. Growing up was supposed to be fun and full of purpose but now it’s so full of fear and change that it haunts our youth.

Why can’t we be young forever? Why can’t we feel the beat beneath our feet and dance to it rather than turn it off? If you ask Joey Valence and Brae, they’d say you can and they’d be right.

Welcome to HYPERYOUTH. It’s not just JVB’s third album – it’s a movement; a statement about growing up, but not getting old. Never losing that spark that keeps the lights on and the party jumping.

HYPERYOUTH - Joey Valence & Brae — HYPERYOUTH – Joey Valence & Brae

The Pennsylvania pair have been known for this ideal. Mixing boom bap with EDM and sometimes punk to create their unique brand of genre-defying booty-shaking tracks. Coming out of a Penn State dorm room to raging on the Lollapalooza stage and beyond, their talent is timeless, and their sound is for the hip-hop history books.

They released both their debut EP Underground Sound and the breakout record Punk Tactics only a few months apart. The release of these albums put them on the map. Soon after they were on Ellen, going viral on TikTok, and doing shows across the nation.

Those early records solidified them as a group. Their sound was old-school with new-school attitudes – unapologetically wearing their influences on their sleeve and expertly showing off their mad skills.

This kinetic energy didn’t stop, and in 2024 No Hands released – their biggest drop since ‘22. The record was a mature, more refined version of their previous work – showcasing how far they’ve come and pushing the envelope lyrically and sonically.

Atwood Magazine’s Jake Fewx hailed it as a “riot of a rap album which bursts at the seams with its one-of-a-kind personality… it’s confident, snarky, and beset with a unique brand of goofy fun.” No Hands featured icons like Ayesha Erotica and Danny Brown, both of whom helped reinforce JVB’s spot as experimental hip-hop giants while also keeping the TikTok space buzzing.

Fun, Energetic, & Unashamedly Themselves, Joey Valence & Brae Coast With ‘NO HANDS’

:: INTERVIEW ::

Now they’ve returned in 2025 with HYPERYOUTH, their highly anticipated third studio album (released August 15^th via RCA Records).

“HYPERYOUTH was born from our experience going out to clubs and looking around in astonishment that nobody else shared the same excitement we did,” the duo share. “Fourteen songs about dance, love, expression and maturing. A club album about growing up. Nonchalantness is dead. Click play, have fun, dance, cry.”

Atwood Magazine sat down to discuss the record and the trajectory of JVB. Read our interview below as Joey Valence & Brae talk about the making of HYPERYOUTH, their love of sampling, the magic of live shows, and why they’re on a mission to get everyone back on the dance floor.

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:: stream/purchase HYPERYOUTH here ::

:: connect with Joey Valence & Brae here ::

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“WASSUP” – Joey Valence & Brae ft. JPEGMAFIA

A CONVERSATION WITH JOEY VALENCE & BRAE

Atwood Magazine: “HYPERYOUTH” has, from my view, become a movement. A lot of people are talking about their feelings about growing up, too. What was the intention behind the idea of HYPERYOUTH? Did you expect it to touch as many people as it has?

Joey: I mean, that was obviously the hope with it was to do that. We wanted to, going into this album, talk about maturing. Because most of our music up until this point has been very spontaneous and very energetic and youthful. We wanted to take that and sort of grow up with our audience and be like “growing up is hard”. Then using dancing as a metaphor for it, we grow up and we go out and why does nobody want to dance anymore?

I feel like that’s a feeling everybody has. Nobody wants to grow up, so we just built a track list around that feeling of not wanting to do that and the youthfulness of it.

How did you manage to capture all those feelings on the track list?

Brae: It was fun. This album we leaned into some flows and lyrical pockets that we haven’t before and Joey’s production is just insane. Every song sounds so different and so amazing. it was really fun to just try new things. So people are going to be surprised by how the same yet different everything sounds. Sonically it’s just very well rounded.

I think, to answer your question a little bit better, each song sounds like it could be from a different album is a good way to describe it. There’s a taste for everyone. It’s really an appetizer sampler of an album through songs that tickle the ear in specific ways for sure.

The song “Party's Over” specifically. I feel like that song does weave in and out of emotions really well. How did it feel in the studio crafting that song and was that the intention to move around between emotions?

Joey: Yeah, that was honestly the first song that I sent Brae to start to think about the context of the album. But I think that’s the intention. Especially with my verse, you can hear the intent of talking as a youthful kid and then straying back like the sh*t is actually real. And so it’s the struggle you hear within that of trying to grow up but then not wanting to.

So, you can hear that a lot and then the music as it progresses gets dirtier and you hear more emotion and the vocals and everything. That’s honestly fully the point of that song. Because we’re talking about the party being over, but it really isn’t. It’s an uplifting song at the end of the day to be like, you know what, sometimes it’s time to move on, but we can stay the same.

There's a lyric in that song: “My life's a three-leaf clover, but I guess the party's over.” What does that mean to you?

Brae: That was me and I f*ed that up completely, but we left it in. I forgot that the hard to find clover is the four-leaf one, but I actually I think it’s kind of funny looking back now. After I’ve said it and we both talked about it, we were like, “Wait, is a three-leaf one the rare one or is it four-leaf?”

But that’s kind of the juxtaposition, double entendre of that bar actually in and of itself. Because our life is getting so crazy and all these blessings are happening to us that we feel lucky and blessed to be here. But at the same time we’re just these kids from the middle of Pennsylvania. We never feel famous or special so I think that bar is kind of funny being like a normal f*ing three-leaf clover.

So, the album has a lot of samples. What is your process with finding a sample, and what's your favorite sample on the album?

Joey: I am so inspired by sample-based music. It’s a very lost art, especially in an age where nobody wants to pay to clear samples and they’re just trying to remake everything so they can take 100% of the cut of the song and I’m like, ‘I don’t even care, I just want to make art.’ So, when it comes to sampling, I’m just so inspired by, Daft Punk and Skrillex where they’re just doing all this multi-layered sampling and everything and it’s just what I would love to do more with production.

But anyway, my favorite is probably the fact that we were able to sample “Bangering” by Skrillex. It’s literally just so cool that we got that cleared because that’s obviously a song that got me into music. But the process of finding a sample is whatever looks cool. We’re blessed to have this website called Tracklib. If you don’t know what it is

Brae: We spent hours on Tracklib. I’ve been on Page 99 Infinity on tracklib.

Joey: Honestly this is the first time where we were sort of told like go crazy with sampling and we’re just listening to songs that we like and then hopefully sort of get it down the line.

Brae: My favorite sample on the album is on “Have to Cry,” the Bobby Caldwell song “Cry.” That is so crazy, it’s exactly the type of hip-hop that I used to listen to and I wanted a song that sounded exactly like that and Joey f*ing killed that song. So, that’s definitely my favorite sample on the album.

Do you have any samples that maybe you really wanted but didn't clear or just didn't fit for this record?

Joey: Yes. Honestly, in “HYPERYOUTH,” we were trying to clear a Jay-Z sample on it, which would have been amazing because that song was purposely supposed to be a mix of all of our favorite things and being able to hopefully simple them.

There was an unreleased track that we did with an M83 “Midnight City” sample. I wish we could have cleared. But honestly up until about two days ago, there’s a string of Adventure Time BMO samples on it and we thought we weren’t going to be able to clear it and now we’re getting told that we can and we’re going to be the first people have that ever had official Adventure Time in their music.

BMO kind of narrates the album in a way. Are you a big Adventure Time fan?

Joey: Yeah, I am. I f*ing love Adventure Time. Specifically that episode is so surrounded with the idea of growing up but wanting to stay youthful and I just think BMO’s quotes in it, every time I watch that episode, it just perfectly sort of describes the feeling of being scared to grow up and not change when everything around you is changing. So, I think I do use BMO as a narrator a lot on this album to sort of portray that feeling. And I’m glad we were able to sample it. It’s so cool.

Brae: Yeah, it’s also so sick because the BMO samples kind of pop up in three or four of the tracks on the album. And it’s kind of a callback to A Tribe Called Quest Midnight Marauders how there’s a constant kind of narration from that voice recorder woman’s voice so I just like that shit that kind of follows and calls back and gives ode to old hip-hop ‘cause it’s just it’s so dope.

On your record No Hands, the deluxe version specifically, you said that “Pineapple Fried Rice” is the most underrated track. Is there a song on HYPERYOUTH that you do not want to be overlooked?

Joey: Honestly, all them. I really hope the one we just released, “LIVE RIGHT” properly gets to shine– that is such a good song. I really hope “Have to Cry,” that song is so good – I hope that gets to shine, and I hope that the last song on the album, “Disco Tomorrow,” I hope that gets a shine. Every track is just in its own way so good.

Brae: Yeah, every song has its own thing. The last song, “Disco Tomorrow,” is almost like a storytelling of JVB and both of our verses are really long in that song and I love the verses and the lyrics and what we have to say on that one and then “Give It To Me” is just the most raw in-your-face punch somebody hip-hop songs. I hope the hardcore boom bap hip-hop fans f*k with that one.

And then “IS THIS LOVE” is our first song that kind of leans into our really softer voices and tones and talks about feelings and love and relationships and that’s super f*ing dope. So every song I can’t wait for everybody to hear truly. We’re so excited.

I think that “Is This Love” and a few of the other songs, they do kind of contribute to that maturity that you were talking about in this record. Was it kind of hard to dive into more of your feelings with them?

Brae: It was easy because we’ve never talked about it.

Joey: Yeah, it’s almost getting harder to write just the fun stuff because we’re baby boys who have feelings, you know. But I’ve always made that kind of music in my own time and we both have emotions. So, it’s just easy once you get a different topic to write about other than partying.

So, those songs just came so fast, but I think specifically with me, especially on some of the more open tracks, it’s hard for me to talk about emotions candidly. Especially with the current state of our music. So, it was a little bit of a challenge to talk about things in a way that would genuinely connect with an audience and openly about it. So, in some points of it, it was a little bit challenging, but overall it’s a lot easier to be honest than you think because there’s just no pressure.

How do you feel your audience is going to respond to those types of songs?

Brae: I mean first of all, we’re so grateful for our fan base. Everyone that rocks with JVB, they’re so accepting of new sounds and new noises from us. We found that our fan base is very mendable to what we do. So, especially with “LIVE RIGHT,” it hasn’t been out for that long but the response to it thus far has been crazy. Because they’re so excited to hear a different side of what we normally do.

And we’re grateful and blessed that we got popular from the crazy, mosh hip-hop stuff, but the fact that we’re able to put out a track that sounds like “LIVE RIGHT” That’s just sonically sounds so different than “Punk Tactics” or “Double Jump” or what have you. The fact that our fans like this and are like “this is the greatest song, I love it so much.” Like “you guys are my favorite artists” blah blah blah. It’s inspiring and it keeps us going for sure. So, I think everyone’s going to enjoy the album with all the different sounds.

How do you feel knowing that so many people, are learning about boom bap and old school music in general from your group?

Brae: Dude, it makes me so happy because I remember as a younger kid especially because it was harder at our age because Spotify really wasn’t popping yet when we were 12, 13 years old. So, music discovery was so cave man. It was just YouTube.

All I was doing was, you’d find one song and then pray that something else came up after that and you know you’re learning stuff from your friends and what have you, but it’s funny when you read the comments. These 13, 14-year-old kids are asking “what are more artists that sound like this?” And they have no clue that entire world discography of stuff like Tribe Called Quest and Gang Starr and Wu-Tang exists. So, I feel honored that we’re able to put a generation of kids on the type of music they never knew existed.

You have some major co-signs from like JPEGMAFIA, Danny Brown, Pendulum. How does it feel to have that on your discography?

Joey: Honestly, going into this those were the people we looked up to when making music and it’s so cool to see it sort of come full circle and have actual tracks with them and be accepted by the same community that we’re a part of. They paved a way especially for alternative hip-hop. So it’s really cool again to be accepted by that community and they’re just legends and it’s that they just absolutely kill the tracks they do with us.

So, it’s really amazing. I can’t say anything else than that but it’s so cool that we’re able to meet these people and become friends with them and make music with our friends.

Do you have any features that you hope to have later on in your career?

Brae: Yeah, everybody. We want to work with all the people that we enjoy. I don’t know. Yeah, we do this all the time.

Joey: Our dream is Tyler. That would be fantastic. Tyler and Skrillex. I’d love Skrillex to work with Yeah. Skrillex And if Daft Punk ever makes a comeback we better on that track

Joey posted that photo of the inspirations for the album. And Igor was on the list but Chromakopia has a similar vibe of realizing your getting older. Do you feel like even though it came out a little later, do you feel like Chromakopia kind of influenced you a little bit?

Joey: I think honestly out of all of Tyler’s albums They really all in their own way inspired it. I could have put Cherry Bomb, I could have put Flower Boy, I could have put Chromakopia, I could have put even Wolf and stuff like that. I just think his style It was mainly from a production stand point where I was taking a lot of inspiration from that stuff. [Igor] probably my favorite Tyler album. So that’s why I put it on there, but I just love the songwriting and that stuff and the dirty synths and everything like that was really a big inspiration.

But especially with this new album, like he is sort of explaining to people the same message that we’re going for with this record and what we have been going for for quite some time. It’s why don’t people want to dance anymore? And it’s so cool to see that album come out and people have that thought in their head right before our album comes out because it’s sort of paving a way for our album to have the same in a similar lane, so it’s really exciting.

Your live shows, absolutely insane. Have you always had this natural chemistry on stage or was it a learning curve going through the motions?

Brae: We kind of just got thrown into performing honestly. We didn’t have a choice. We kind of just jumped out there and started doing what we do, and it’s pretty much been the same since a couple years ago.

Joey: Yeah, we’re naturally just idiots and we like to make fools of ourselves so being on stage we were just performing for ourselves and we’re stupid and like to do that so, it just came so naturally. There’s no nerves when you’re on stage.

You have tour rules, too. What made you feel like it was important to push such an emphasis on dancing and moshing and being in the moment at your shows?

Joey: I mean, it’s really there’s not a lot of shows we do where people aren’t dancing, but it was more just sort of pointed at a general audience for music and new potential fans coming to this show. This album is so focused around being yourself on the dance floor and like I said, we just use dancing as a big metaphor throughout this album and it is a club album.

So we’re like, “If you come here, you better be dancing.” Why when we go out to clubs, when we go out to things like that, people just aren’t dancing. I’m like, guys, what are we doing? Enjoy yourself, please. Like we’re too cool to dance… Nobody’s too cool to dance. Please just let yourself go for a moment and enjoy yourself. And that’s the message that we want to give with this album. That’s why we made the tour rules. We just want people to come, be in the moment and ready to dance.

Overall, what do you want people to be left with when they finish the album? After that first listen, what are they supposed to feel?

Joey: This is the best album of all time. I’m going to run it back 10 times.

Brae: We keep getting asked this question and I keep trying to come up with a good answer for it. But I keep defaulting to I just hope that one song means something to somebody. “I love that line that he says” or “oh my god the synths in this one song I love how like floaty they are.” Just take a piece of it with you and just keep playing that sh*t. And just f*ing dance to it man. There’s so many good songs on it.

Joey: Hope that people sort of of hear it and hear what we’re saying, take a piece out of it like Brae said and they just learn to be more accepting of themselves and changes around them. That’s really what we’re trying to say. Be okay and things are going to be fine. We all change, we all grow up. It’s not that scary. Go out and have fun.

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