fuc(k) y(o)u

Danny Brown - Lincoln Continental (2011)

This was on The Martorialist’s end of year list and I wanted to nick it but if I had I’d have just been nicking it, wouldn’t it? According to this great little in-their-own-words article on XXX, ‘Lincoln Continental’ was an album/mixtape bonus track, and the BranUn DeShay beat manages to turn the mock-epic theme to Final Fantasy 7 into a zany buzz-saw of a riff for Danny to do his hyperactive, hyper-charismatic thang over. Of course, while rapping like a nutcase is probably the ‘thang’ that distinguishes Danny the most, revisiting XXX (which I gave a rave review to last year) quickly reminds you that one of his greatest strengths as a rapper is that he isn’t really pinned down to one ‘thang’ at all. That’s the ‘thang’, you see…

Tracks like ”Lincoln Continental” and ”Die Like A Rockstar” showcase Danny at his most Danny-est, with him sounding supremely unhinged (though crazily-confident enough to hang off the hinges by the tips of his well-bitten fingers, swinging back and forth, whooping and throwing poo at the orderlies). But tracks like ”Fields” and last year’s superlative ”Drinks On Me” (still the best thing I’ve heard by him, I think) display a pictorial and emotional lucidity that actually marks him out as one of the sanest (and articulate) rappers in the game.

Plenty of rappers talk about getting fucked up, but how many talk about nose-bleeds, emotionless sex and an alcoholic auntie ”shitting blood in the toilet”? Plenty of rappers talk about coming up hard, but would much rather depict themselves sitting triumphantly and carelessly in a Maybach or on a Yacht than “Sitting on porches of abandoned houses / Or sitting in the field on bed bug ridden couches”, as they may have in their past (if they aren’t lying about it). Nothing wrong with this, really - check Rich Forever for ample proof that boasting about being surreal-ly rich can definitely work like a charm from an entertainment perspective.

Lincoln Continental vs. Maybach Rnd 1 - FIGHT!

Rawse is a great cartoon character (/rapper), but there isn’t much depth to him (outside of his buttock crevice, natch) - he won’t ever tell you who he really is. Because of this, unless you happen to be a mega-rich mobster, he probably won’t ever really tell you anything about who you are either (other than a fan of lavish thug-rap). XXX culminates in ”30”, in which Danny screams himself hoarse exposing his frantic anxiety at hurtling towards early-middle age, justifiably triumphant about his victories, conscious too of his failings and vulnerability. Ross, who had a DOUBLE seizure on a plane very recently, seems unlikely to ever talk in depth about it on record, except as something he hasn’t been stopped by.

Why demand this of him? As I said the other day, when Ross comes out with stuff like ”They say I’m gettin’ money, must be Illuminati, talkin’ to the Holy Ghost - in my Bugatti”, almost audaciously poking fun at his own inflated, half-mythic image while simultaneously inflating it, it seems obvious that he’s by-and-large content to remain a blatantly false idol. A lot of listeners (me included) are content with this too - his persona is funny, and fun, and despite his tongue-in-cheek boasts is generally scrupulously sustained. Maybe we don’t want to see the mask slip, even though we know its a mask - maybe Ricky doesn’t have anything interesting to say about real-life anyway. But Danny Brown does. This is why you might justifiably argue that if you hear one Rick Ross tune, you’ve effectively heard them all - but that if you’ve heard one Danny Brown tune, there’s NO WAY you know the half.

It’s interesting that XXX is one of the ”realest” rap albums I listened to last year, despite its out-there production and the often madcap imagery found in Danny’s lyrics. In a sense it shows that a controlled sense of insanity is the natural response to the controlled insanity of society, and the sanest response at that. Rich Forever is (for most listeners and, you’d imagine, most of the people involved in making it) pure escapist fantasy, a controlled burst of insanity if ever there was one, despite its slick production and utterly conventional lyrical themes. It’s a fifty-six year old fishmonger who thinks he’s Napoleon - in wolf’s clothing.

Perhaps Ross’s mixtape seems more ‘normal’ than XXX in part because Ross’s escapist, consumerist fantasies (some of which he’s no doubt turned into a reality) are ones that we all share; are forced to share, in fact, by media, movies, TV, advertising. Then, of course, there are the more specifically male fantasies of being lusted after by hordes of beautiful women and being able to “double back with the banana” on anybody who “talks slick” about you. Oh, and not getting in trouble for it, either. Being above the law means being above it all, instead of in the messy middle of things, as most (ALL, actually) of us are. Ross’s music is both superhuman and sub-human. We connect, as listeners, to Ross’s fantasies (and song-craft), but not to Ross himself (well, this is unfair, I suppose, since his humour can’t fail to charm us).

Danny’s music, on the other hand, is thoroughly human, even at its most eccentric and surreal -though on XXX he does engage with an alternative myth to the Mobster/Baller myth Ross is besotted with, that of the RAWK STAR. His lyrics are filled with images of grit, grime (/Grime) and human waste. Bodies being pumped with medicative chemicals in order for the mind to survive in a reality filled with burnt out buildings and bug-riddled couches. Bodies that spew blood, sweat and semen all over the place as they fail to stand-up to either the reality or the medication. You can’t imagine such a mental and physical mess in the world of Ross’s music. Imagine if you sneezed blood on ”the Bawse’s” Bugatti. You’d be shot in the head as if it was nothing and it’d be a pristine death, with a tiny entry wound just-so inbetween the eyes and your brains landing like crab-meat in a perfect ”M M G” on the floor. But we don’t have to imagine messiness existing in our own lives, do we? Your life’s a mess. My life’s a mess. That’s essentially why I just wrote this and why you - you poor, non-Bugatti driving SAP - read it, isn’t it?