In April, the cult US rapper Danny Brown went into rehab. Many artists across various genres have done the same, of course. But what makes Brown’s stint especially notable is that the Detroit native’s entire body of work – a decade-plus of audacious, electrifying hip-hop – had revolved around, first, selling drugs and, later, when he gave up dealing, merely partying very hard.
In a very crowded field he has excelled. If gleeful, nihilistic overindulgence had a poet laureate, the clever and funny Brown would be the incumbent. At his most seemingly straightforward, he would put out tracks such as Smokin’ & Drinkin’ (from 2013’s Old LP), an ode to getting obliterated. Tonight it becomes a hedonistic call and response (“Drinkin’ and smokin’!”) with the hyped-up, sold-out audience.
Everyone here is more than thrilled to see our “distant Detroit cousin”, as he calls himself, in the flesh. Accompanied by his DJ, Skywlkr, and dressed in a black leather biker jacket with a peaked cap, Brown looks reassuringly like himself, his punk attitude seemingly unaffected by his time in treatment. Moreover, his energy levels tout the benefits of clean living across a tight hour of tracks old and new.
Not only is Brown alive – recent overdoses in this musical cohort include Mac Miller, Juice Wrld and Lil Peep – and out of rehab, he can claim authorship of not one but two of 2023’s most compelling albums: Scaring the Hoes (with Jpegmafia, released in March) and Quaranta (last month).
There is context here. “Dad rap” – music made by older, often leftfield rappers – has had a phenomenal year, with stellar offerings from Atlantan powerhouse Killer Mike (half of Run the Jewels), cult New York sophisticate Billy Woods (across two albums), a vault album from Danger Mouse and Jemini, as well as André 3000’s surprise flute suite. But Brown’s double whammy still stands out.
Tonight’s opening salvo comes from Quaranta’s thoughtful title track, all arpeggiating guitars and spaghetti western vibes. “This rap shit done saved my life and fucked it up at the same time,” he declares. For all his wild rep, Brown’s canon of overindulgence has often encompassed thoughtful, even anguished, editorialising about its meanings. His breakout XXX album (2011) marked the maverick rapper’s 30th year, and his relationship with Xanax.
Brown’s 2016 outing, released on UK electronic label Warp, cemented two defining facts about him. Atrocity Exhibition – named after a Joy Division song – made plain how omnivorous his musical tastes were, and how his hyperactive raps could fit over anything from digital dance music to industrial noise.
Moreover, on songs such as Ain’t It Funny – sublime tonight – Brown pointedly laments his own jesterish role, playing a messed-up rapper for public consumption. Indulged by people who could have been challenging his behaviour, he became the atrocity being exhibited. Both euphoric and punishing on the ears tonight, the Atrocity Exhibition song When It Rain underlines drug-taking’s relationship to societal breakdown – and Brown’s abilities as a “murder music orchestrator”.
Everything we hear tonight is thrown into stark relief by Brown’s hard reset into sobriety. Written over the pandemic and marking his 40th year, the candid and hard-hitting Quaranta documents his bouncing around rock bottom, counting all he has lost: he had descended into solitary chemical abuse after the breakup of a long-term relationship.
While waiting for its samples to clear, Brown also recorded and released Scaring the Hoes with the equally iconoclastic rapper-producer Jpegmafia, a manic tour de force full of dial-up internet noises, porn samples and musical handbrake turns whose offerings tonight whip the crowd into stiff peaks. The two toured … Hoes together in the US this summer. The only thing that would have made this gig even more satisfying would have been a Danny and Peggy (as the pair are known) double-header.
The album’s title, meanwhile, reflects a long-running internet meme about how to not go about getting female attention. Leaving aside the kneejerk sexism, in the hands of Danny and Peggy the phrase has become a raucous, two-fingered salute to commercial rap.
We all do the fast handclaps at the start of the title track, which consists of a rattling drum kit and a lone saxophone and not much else. “Where’s the Auto-Tune?” demands Brown sarcastically. “What the fuck is that? Give me back my aux cord.” On Jenn’s Terrific Vacation, a track about gentrification in Detroit, the powerful sub bass reaches inside us and rearranges things.
Jpegmafia’s ear-melting production reflects the altered, manic states Brown raps about. But it’s the deranged joy in this often apocalyptic-sounding music that shines through. And Brown clearly doesn’t need any assistance, pharmaceutical or otherwise, to be one of the most exciting hip-hop practitioners around.
