In order to be a celebrity nowadays, a rite of passage includes having your own podcast. For the most part, this is a fairly useless accessory that only inflates the ego. There are those who are good at spouting an hour’s worth of content weekly, but it’s often best just seen as finding transparency between the artist and the fans. You’ll maybe get some early scoops on projects or vulnerable stories that enhance appreciation, but for the most part, one has to ask… why is this a thing? It’s true that this makes everyone more likable and likability does plenty to help sales, but what is being contributed to the greater form of art when these people get behind a microphone?
With that said, I was strangely excited to find out that The Danny Brown Show existed. While I’m not particularly attached to any rapper to the point of obsession, there was something that piqued my curiosity. Brown has long been one of those artists where I can’t help but be intrigued by what he does. Some could say it's simply that he has a fun voice and that his music reminds me of Ol Dirty Bastard if he had a B.A. in Underground Music. I’m especially aware of “XXX” and “Old” as works that explored his addiction with this dark comedy underlying more sincere emotions. Even his verse on the posse cut “1Train” is very amusing. I guess what I wanted to know is who is this man and can he possibly be as entertaining as his public persona?
Truthfully, the show is exactly what I expected and despite being only two episodes in it does feel like one of those podcast corners that will be urban legends. I’m not sure how long he’ll be able to get away with crazy stories, but it does seem like he’s well-traveled and capable of surprising you. The way he’ll candidly slide from talk of relationship advice to video games and even his anger at Kanye West for not giving him a t-shirt for $1,000 are all fairly amusing. His candidness with drugs and a sordid past also make him endearing. This could all just be the impact of a new show that is using A-Game Material right off the bat, but honestly, I’m enjoying it so far.
Which got me wondering what it was exactly that made him so appealing in the first place. There have been many rappers with substantial careers in the past decade. Plenty have released music I’ve liked and yet nobody has really fit on the same wavelength as Brown. At most I can think of Rico Nasty, but even she hasn’t warmed up to me quite yet. The thing that is different is that listening to something like "Atrocity Exhibition” is to notice what separates simply making Top 40 music to sell singles and an artist who is using the title in a very literal way. Brown may be known for rapping over beats regardless of how tailored they are to him, but when it comes to his albums, I’m fairly sure he’s made a Wonderland vision of his life.
In some way releasing this album in September 2016 feels like the perfect time capsule not only of his life but of America. It was a fraught presidential election that was only ramping up its madness. The world was about to break in half to a point that hasn’t yet been repaired. So much of reality was about to slip away… and here was Danny Brown releasing an album that opens like a parody of jazz as an upright bass string feels like it’s wavering its final notes. From what sounds like a cavernous, echoing room, the listener is introduced with:
I'm sweating like I’m in a raveBeen in this room for 3 daysThink I’m hearing voicesParanoid and think I’m seeing ghost-es, oh shit
A thing that I personally love about Brown’s style of rapping is that it isn’t always about complicated flows. Sometimes it’s the equivalent of slam poetry, where the broken-up lines are short and choppy, creating these vivid images that mix with comedy and hallucinations. As someone whose whole persona exists on some wavelength of crazy, this album is a journey into his most unfiltered side. For those who didn’t get it before, prepare to hear something less sensical than jazz’s free-formed structure, where everything feels made up. To those who recognize the power in words and even the esoteric track loops, this album is on another level brilliant.
Brown simply doesn’t function in rap the same way that everybody else does. While it’s true that Kendrick Lamar and Earl Sweatshirt (who both make great cameos on “Really Doe”) have made more sincere tracks exploring emotional turmoil, the truth here is a maze worthy of Lewis Carroll. There’s something to be had with parsing through the muck and looking at each piece, but together they are funhouse mirrors, giving a sense of self that is bizarre looking. You can’t help but laugh. In some ways it’s like that upright bass string: bending, stretching, wobbling out of existence.
A fun piece of the puzzle is how parts of this album tie to his discography. For an artist who seems intentionally sporadic, he does piece together a greater self-portrait. Sometimes it’s more literal, but other times it’s reminiscent of his flow from “XXX,” such as on “Lost” where he makes an impressively economic opening that mixes in a whole lot of his interests including cinema, drugs, and sex along with some comedy. The punchy nature is infectious, especially in his cadence as he announces:
I’m like KubrickWith two bricksAnd hoes on the stripOff a two pieceA toothpick I flickAnd I preach
Again, limited space allows his manic style to resonate more with the audience. At this point, the themes of “Atrocity Exhibition” are very clear, especially with how they overlap with each other. “Lost” is another song about identity and having these images all cross paths, where suddenly his candid sex talk interferes with talk of trying to stay productive. What is Brown’s life but one big mess?
While not listed on Wikipedia as a single, there’s plenty to love about “Ain’t It Funny” as the most directly commercial. With a Jonah Hill-directed music video that seems inspired by [adult swim] and its effort to mix the innocent with truly homicidal, it’s the song where the brilliance mixes with the madness most clearly. The harmony is a rallying cry of vocals that fade ominously, looped in this state of never gained satisfaction. By the time that Brown comes in, it’s a bebop horn that just plays at comically off measures. It doesn’t make sense to think about too hard, but the way it loops with the harmony is peak Danny Brown.
Also, the music video is a work of art if just in the sense that it conveys dissonance and discomfort so beautifully. On the surface, it’s a parody of 1980s family sitcoms that includes a cameo from Gus Van Sant and “This Fucking Kid” as This Kid. None of it makes sense, but the fact that they ignore the clear evidence of Brown’s drug addiction makes the video sadder, especially as he turns to anthropomorphized drugs and says that they’re his only friend. In return, they state that they’ll kill everyone he loves. Considering that the video already feels like a hallucination, it’s amazing to realize how critical Brown has been about his drug abuse underneath songs that sound like he’s having a genuinely great time. Also, there’s something to be said for Brown’s singularity that his big get for a cameo was Van Sant, who even at his most commercial never seemed capable of appearing in a hip-hop video.
Following the infectious “Pneumonia,” the harmonies of unintelligible vocals return for “Dance in the Water.” Once again, there are the scatterbrained vocals. Even when Brown is using repetition in the chorus, there is something more approaching spiritual clarity in the hallucinatory state. It becomes so off-kilter that it loops back around to being an emotional ride. Again, it helps that he’s capable of delivering vocals that are psychoanalyzing his condition the entire time, making his cry to “dance in the water and not get wet” sound logical. At this point, he exists in his own world, and it’s up to you whether you are still walking alongside him, hand in hand, admiring every numbed-face reference to drugs and sex that he’s thrown in.
Some of the decisions don’t make sense, like choosing to steal the melody for OutKast’s “B.O.B.” while rapping on “Today.” It’s a moment that is borderline insane and ingenious at the same time. Along with the hook being vaguely similar to Big Boi’s verse, he gives enough of a winking nod, breaking away from paraphrasing to go “cure for cancer, cure for AIDS.” It lets the listener know that they’re not crazy, that he really is copping someone else’s work. Now why he’s doing that is not abundantly clear, but given that the back half of the album is where the listener begins their journey out of the rabbit hole and to the side of complete understanding, it makes sense that for the first time, this is one of the sections where the album makes the most sense, even if the chorus of “Today” has a haunting echo that sounds like it’s ready to gnaw away at the final bits of sanity. Okay, there is the none too subtle penultimate song “Get Hi” which also features a cameo from Cypress Hill’s B-Real telling Brown to relax by getting high. That also feels like a nod to 90s rap influencing bad behavior, even if it’s very chill about it.
To Brown’s credit, he ends on a different kind of high note with “Hell for It.” Here is something more affirming, like a pallet cleanser after wandering through some of the darkest, most deranged work he’s ever done. By this time the listener feels more than acquainted with who he is, either annoyed by every eccentricity or ready to consider him the next messiah of rap. The answer lies somewhere in between, especially with a confidence that allows him to hold onto that sanity when he’s deepest in the hole of confusion. It may be why the song opens with religious imagery, as if asking for forgiveness and finding meaning for the first time. In fact, he mentions directly:
So my taskIs inspire your future with my pastI lived through that shitSo you don’t have to go through itStepping stones in my lifeHot coalsWalk with me
Given that he also mentions later on “I just wanna make music/Fuck being a celebrity/Cause these songs that I write/Leave behind my legacy” it feels like the most affirming way to end this album. It’s as much a cautionary tale as it is using art as a piece of therapy to better understand himself. Maybe some of these issues are still in his life, but he uses them to make his art more powerful, capable of being deconstructed and appreciated. Maybe it’s just an excuse to put on and have the strangest dance party imaginable. Whatever it may be, Brown is a complicated figure who’s making art for art’s sake. There’s no mistaking what he does for anybody else, and at the end of the day, I admire that.
This isn’t to say that I love “Atrocity Exhibition” wholeheartedly. There’s a lot that gets tedious in mass consumption. However, it’s rare that an album just manages to not care what the mainstream opinion is and make something this genuine. Given that Brown has worked with so many great artists over his career, it’s amazing that this exists, that audiences actually have responded favorably to it. This isn’t like a more catered, methodical deconstruction of self like “Yeezus,” but something more akin to free-formed jazz, of a mind that is barely attached still. He is unashamed to speak his mind, to giving shoutouts to Asa Akira and Steven Spielberg on the same song. Maybe there’s a deeper meaning. Maybe there’s nothing, but this is his world and like he said, this is what he’ll be known for.
I don’t know what this has to do with The Danny Brown Show other than there’s something amazing about hearing the man think. When he’s free of the musical form, he’s still producing jokes, telling stories that draw you in. Again, maybe he won’t always have the best perspective and the gimmick will wear thin. But for now, the worst that can be said is that he feels genuine, like he’s challenging the idea of sincerity through a sometimes vulgar lens. He’s an addict of many sorts, but also someone who knows how to use it to make his art better, to make people laugh, to make them even more confused. Alas, his life is an “Atrocity Exhibition” and thankfully he focused long enough to make something that best exemplified that to the public.
Comments
Post a Comment