“Sittin on some Kobe’s
Smoking on a stogie
Bangin Noreaga
When I’m done I lite the bogie (what, what)
40 on the floor mat a leave ya holey moley
Banana in her tailpipe will make her act so folly”

First thing’s first: this guy is frigging WEIRD! That was my impression of him a few months ago, and that’s my impression now, but with more studying of him, he’s grown on me and I’ve come to terms to deal with his eccentric self. Look at Tyler, The Creator and the things he says in his songs, then you have Danny Brown: the east coast version, although I hate to compare the two there are some similarities. Both of them are not for the easily, EASILY offended. They have very provocative & grotesque descriptions in their lyrics, so it’s not for everyone, trust me.

I was first introduced to Danny Brown by a fellow rapper, and twitter follower/followee, Lendl Raps (download his most recent mixtape The 511 Tape), because he sent me this XXX mixtape and told me to listen to it. He also listens to Odd Future and all of that, so I knew we already relatively had the same taste in music. I downloaded this, and then as I started to listen to it, I was like “wtf is going on?” All I was hearing was this guy essentially talking about gruesomely having sex with girls and drugs, and I didn’t even finish the mixtape; I let it sit there for months, and I didn’t even think to ever go back to it.

It wasn’t until the XXL Freshmen Class of 2012, until he really resurfaced again, and everyone was talking about him (okay, not everyone that I KNEW, but in general, people were). So now that he was in the eye of the mainstream, he would be discussed more, but going back to the XXX mixtape was thought even a thought process to me. It wasn’t until I stumbled upon Black Milk and listened to ‘Black & Brown,’ that I really discovered that there was more to Danny Brown than just that one mixtape, but you know what they say about first impressions: They’re really important in whether someone decides to either go with, or go without you. In this case, I was GONE before the thought of going WITH could even occur. Black Milk helped his cause because I was exposed to a different side of Danny. The main song that caught me was the title song ‘Black & Brown.’ Danny’s verse was RAW! He came out with this energy, this crazy flow, and I think from there it was time to finally open the vault and try him again.

When I had mentioned on Twitter that I was once again going to try out listening to him, Mr. Tommy Chase (which many of you were first introduced to in this spoken word video) advised a couple of mixtapes for me to listen to (including XXX), so I finally bit the bullet and said alright, let’s do this. I made a good decision.

I had no idea that Danny was from Detroit (I wasn’t interested in the guy, so why would I seek more information?) and honestly, being from Detroit goes without saying; we all know that it’s a rough city to grow up in and come out successful (See: Eminem). Royce Da 5’9, Elzhi & Black Milk (along with Shady) make Detroit one of the more slept on cities when it comes to hip hop, because they were always known for Motown, and then all of that just seemed to be lost over the years because of the essentially 3rd world living in a 1st world community. I couldn’t imagine growing up in Detroit. I may have been raised in Scarborough (an area in Toronto, Canada, for those not familiar), but I know FOR-A-FACT that it is NOWHERE REMOTELY CLOSE to the conditions of Detroit. The rappers from the states have more of a passion for rap because they really didn’t have a lot of opportunities to prosper in life because of their living conditions: they were terrible, and they let you know about it, and they use hip hop as their source of motivation to prosper and “Get out.” Danny Brown is no different from that core of people.

I don’t know his whole biography, and that’s not the reason for these profiles, but listening to his music and the way he raps prior to XXX, he really talks about life in Detroit and he’s real with it. You have to respect him for that. In the voice, he reminded me of B.O.B, but with the aggressive nature of Eminem. He’s pretty damn raw. You have to learn how to tolerate when he goes way off the handle and says some outlandish stuff, but overall he’s a rapper that you can either grow to enjoy, or  just simply hate because of content.

Now that I’ve become somewhat familiar with his music (I have a couple of more stuff to listen to), I’m definitely going to look forward his music in the future because he brings a crazy dynamic that can benefit in more ways than just one. Here are some music that I’ve listened to that you can take in. Black & Brown is what I’ll advise to listen to first and pretty much you can go backwards from there if you’re liking how he sounds, but give him a shot.

Black & Brown (With Black Milk)

XXX

The Hybrid

Hawaiian Snow (With Tony Yayo)

Hot Soup

That’s My Word & It STiXX