Y2K Is Back
& It's Better.
Joey Valence & Brae — the freshest duo of Y2K energy in 2026. Absolutely refreshing to hear sound that is reviving for those that want that punk × rap vibe charging full force into the next century.
I stumbled upon these two from listening to my favourite rapper JPEGMAFIA. They dropped the gritty track "Wassup" together — absolutely vibey cadence, electric movements, shot in this shitty old school film filter that feels realer than any of these six-digit top-100 productions the Billboards are pushing. The track had been floating around before the official drop. Peggy brought Joey and Brae out as surprise guests during his set at Gov Ball in New York City, June 6 2025 — and they performed it live in front of thousands before a single had even been announced. That's how you build a moment.
These two met their freshman year at Penn State University in 2021. Started making music. Released a series of singles that grew a cult following. Then came Punk Tactics in 2023, No Hands in 2024, and Hyperyouth in August 2025 as their major label debut on RCA Records. Startafight and Punk Tactics are both up there as my personal favourites — the necessary energy we all miss from the early 2000s, delivered clean and loud by two dudes who clearly don't care about being industry-palatable.
Braedan Lugue (Brae)
Penn State University, 2021
No Hands (2024) · Hyperyouth (2025)
19M+ YouTube views
Self-released prior
Rebecca Black · TiaCorine · IDK
Their biggest and most ambitious record. The album that brought JPEGMAFIA, TiaCorine, and Rebecca Black all under the same JVB roof. The production is Hyperyouth in name and nature — every track engineered to hit harder than the last, with that signature retro-film-grain aesthetic pushing against the clean-modern sounds surrounding it on every streaming playlist.
Lead single Wassup debuted live at Gov Ball before it had a release date. That's the kind of cultural moment most artists plan for years and still don't land. Joey and Brae just walked out on stage with Peggy and let the track do the talking.
Where to start.
The full JVB discography in four eras. Click through, let it cook on the drive, and see how fast the muscle memory kicks in for the Y2K kids in the room.
Why this duo matters.
There's a reason it hits. Early 2000s rap and punk had something that the algorithmic top-40 pipeline killed: friction. The grittiness. The sheer refusal to be polished. JVB brought it back on their terms, from a Penn State dorm room, with a film-grain camera and their own production.
From self-released tapes to RIAA Gold to RCA major label debut in three records. No industry shortcuts. No feature-farming. The growth was real because the music was real. Startafight and Punk Tactics hit because they don't sound like they were cleared by a committee. They sound like two dudes who meant it.
Why the culture needs this.
It's 2026 and the mainstream music landscape is either pop gop, hood trap, or whatever the f*** these kids are going towards. Which is strange because Gen Z and Alpha are caught between being weirdo-entitlement accounts or the necessity to announce their crimes or just be edgy for sport. What happened to actually having fun, or being yourself? Whatever that means.
I thought we'd moved past the Hype Beast era — where former generations had exclusivity and rarity to their styles and aesthetics, where a piece of clothing meant something because not everybody could get it. Now it just feels like as long as things are "designer" it must be good. No. Just no.
You lames rely too much on the trending dik-dok to make yourself feel valid. And worse — the idea of creativity is losing its factor even further because we're moving towards AI agents and tools being used as the entire creative output, not part of it.
Those tools serve a purpose: they're tools. What you create as the individual is what is needed to show your talents. Using AI to offload the unnecessary heavy work — complex debugging, troubleshooting syntax — is what makes it cool. What is not cool is typing some shit into a box and accepting the first thing that comes out.
You can manipulate, mangle, contort — define your true vibes as the ones who make some really f***ing cool shit. I've seen this personally from the open source community. People just want things that work and not be locked into heavily priced subscriptions or paywalled into some cloud service that is selling your data to some greedy ass lame.
Give yourself the freedom to create. Learn to distinguish. Apply some common sense — or you will end up looking like the first generated input from your lack of experimenting into the world of AI, open source, THE DIGITAL RENAISSANCE!
The Digital Renaissance isn't just a phrase — it's the closing thesis of the Mantra Series S1 finale (The Akme) and the philosophical backbone of the entire Side Quest Linux arc. JVB embody it sonically: two dudes who used the tools available to them, defined their own aesthetic, and shipped three albums before anyone could tell them what they were supposed to sound like.
That's the move. Use the tools. Don't become one.
Still building toward 100 songs before formal release. Wassup and Punk Tactics are reference points for what raw production paired with genuine intent sounds like at the output stage — no committee, no polish that kills the friction. Tracks like OVZR.INSM are in that same zone. The film grain stays. The energy has to mean something.