I have a lot of respect for artists who can stay relevant by
releasing new albums. I have even more respect for artists who can stay relevant
by releasing only a single, and that is something that Danny Brown has done.
Despite not putting out an album this year, Brown comes across as a man who has
been busier than ever, staying endlessly connected on Twitter and somehow
finding time to write Grown Up. For someone who prides himself on how
explicitly he can describe sex acts, Grown Up is a comparatively clean song
that features a beat catchier than his usual work. On top of that it has got some real lyrical
gems like, “Hotter than a Hot Pocket out the Devil’s Microwave”. If that wasn’t
enough, it has also got one of the best videos of the year to go with it, one
part silly one part adorable two parts incredibly creative. It is pretty
difficult to find anything negative to say about Danny Brown, which is strangeconsidering how abrasive he can be at times, but
with albums as good as The Hybrid and XXX under his belt, I can’t imagine his
next record will be anything other than fantastic.
Danny Brown is too cool to fit within the frame of this blog post
Of all the albums I’ve ever heard,
Danny Brown’s XXX is perhaps the biggest example of a bait and switch I’ve come
across, and I mean that it the best possible way you can interpret. What I mean
by that is this; come for the explicit songs about oral sex, stay for the
seething cultural commentary. XXX has perhaps more dirty jokes condensed on to
it than the South Park Movie. Seriously, if you have ever laughed at a joke
about a vagina, ever, even once, XXX is the album for you. But that’s not all
folks, there are seriously moments where Danny gets real, and these are the
albums best songs. They sneak up on you, which is perhaps one of Brown’s most
endearing skills, he catches you off guard, which works perfectly for both
parts of his rap game.
Continuing
on, Danny Brown is the coolest person ever, or at least that’s the kind of
person he embodies on XXX. Misogyny aside, Danny manages to be purely unique in
a world where normalcy is more common than actual creativity. There’s nothing
creative about lines like “slap that pussy” but it is creative to come up with upwards
of sixty or seventy different ways of phrasing it, especially when you consider
that each of those phrasings is unique in a world where every rapper on every
corner is singing about vaginas. But Danny Brown manages to be so much and
more. Everything from the way he sounds, that scratchy voice he sings with to
the clothes he wears to his hair and teeth, everything is uniquely his. And that’s something . Danny Brown proves that
its cool to be yourself, especially when yourself is really cool to begin with.
So
to the actual songs then. Brown likes rapping over minimalist beats with heavy
bass and very little melody. They remind me a lot of what most Odd Future songs
sound like. This type of style is bold of course because it requires the
rappers voice, his flow and his lyrics to carry the songs, which Danny does
with little difficulty. Next is his voice, which I would compare to learning to
ride a bike, hear it once and you never forget. Brown conveys himself with such
a scratchy and strange sounding voice and attitude, switching back and forth
from track to track without any hiccups. His voice screeches through every inch
of XXX without really faltering once throughout, its something to see . There is a reason why he has been so heavily
featured in tracks over the past year, he makes appearances on El-P’s Cancer 4
Cure, he spits a verse on The Alchemist’s Flight Confirmation, and is even
rumored to appear on the new Avalanches album (no word yet if the Avalanches
will also be on that record). He has received all this hype for a reason. Brown
proves himself to be a talented and unique rapper, and XXX proves ot be the
definitive way to listen to him as of now.
