ALBUM REVIEW: JB!! aka Dirty Moses - Punctuation!!
*This review originally appeared in our September 2025 issue*
Photo by Kiki Vassilakis
“If you haven’t taken me seriously up until now, after this, you definitely will.”
“It’s like putting a huge exclamation point at the end of a sentence,” JB!! aka Dirty Moses told me. “If you haven’t taken me seriously up until now, after this, you definitely will.”
That’s the energy of Punctuation!!, his new 14-track record. Released August 1, it’s less an album than a declaration—precise, unapologetic, and impossible to ignore. JB!! doesn’t treat this like another notch in his catalog; he treats it like a stamp of authority.
“I give every project main character energy,” he said. “So it doesn’t go out into the world haphazardly and half-assed. Everything matters.”
The title cuts deeper than clever branding. Too often, his name has been misspelled or mishandled in print, a mistake that might seem small but, for an artist who lives through words, feels like erasure. Punctuation!! pushes back. It’s about clarity, identity, and drawing the line. “If I give you the spelling of my name and you keep getting it wrong, I feel disrespected,” he said. “This is my stamp on what I do: take me seriously or don’t take me at all.”
That urgency anchors the title track, a beat from Dood Computer that had been sitting on his hard drive for years. When he finally returned to it, the whole record shifted. “Once I recorded that track, I knew. That was the title. Punctuation became the whole statement.”
From there, the album feeds listeners a mix of “jewelry and medicine,” (which was the original album title). JB!! can be playful, as on glittery and fun tracks like “Ghosts,” a trippy Pac-Man-inspired ode to edibles, but he’s never just joking around. “I spoon-feed my audience,” he said. “I give them the medicine, but I mix some candy in with it, so it’s easier to digest.” That medicine hits hardest in tracks like “Superhero’s Theme,” his collaboration with DJ Nate Da Great, where the pair tackle corporate greed and violence in verses that refuse to soften their blows.
“Harlem,” one of the record’s standouts, is both personal and declarative. Born there before relocating to the Capital Region in the 90s, JB!! still carries the City in him. “I wouldn’t trade Harlem for the world,” he told me. “It made me the person that I am, but it’s all about the hustle and the bustle, which for some is fine, but for others it’s not.” The track becomes an anthem for that duality: Harlem’s hustle on one hand, Albany’s slower space for reflection on the other. “I appreciate everything that I had there, be it negative or positive,” he said. “But I also know I’m glad I raised my kids up here. I carry both.”
That blend shapes the production, too. JB!! produced more than half of Punctuation!! himself, crafting beats that let the verses breathe. Contributions from PJ Katz, Mundy, Dood Computer, and many other artists and producers, widen the palette without ever muddying the message. The sequencing is tight, with no wasted space—every song serves the larger statement.
“I wrote this album with the intention of getting people’s attention, reeling them in, giving them little jewels, and then sending them on their way,” he said. For some listeners, those jewels might hit immediately. For others, maybe not. “I’m unapologetic in my Blackness,” he told me. “For the people whose head it goes over, it’s not for you. I have a whole list of friends and allies who get it—who don’t just talk it; they walk it.”
That unapologetic stance is what makes Punctuation!! feel like more than just another album in his long career. It’s sharp, unified, and fully confident. JB!! isn’t asking for recognition here. He’s demanding it.
And by the end, his name lands exactly as it should—bold, deliberate, punctuated.
Punctuation!! is out now on all major streaming services.