Old enough to party
Rapper Danny Brown is one of the last true rock stars. He’s a chipped-toothed, crazy-haired wild man who received unplanned fellatio while performing live and didn’t miss a beat. An avid drug user, Brown also raps about his depression and mental problems. His albums, especially his excellent prior outing, XXX, come off as bipolar, as he juggles party anthems and dark introspective analyses over out-of-left-field beats.
Old, Brown’s latest LP, is his most varied release yet. He straddles a line between those fans who want him to return to his “old Danny Brown style” of his earlier mixtapes and those more “mainstream” fans who want more of his recent party anthems.
In order to please both groups, Brown split his latest album into two sides. Side A is classic “old” Danny Brown, but also darker than anything he’s previously released.
The beats are progressive but similar to those found on his earlier mixtapes. He raps mainly about his broken childhood and drug-related experiences that have shaped who he is today.
In “Torture,” Brown talks about the horrors he has seen while dealing crack, including watching a crack addict nearly burn his top lip off with a stove when Brown was seven. On “Clean Up,” he talks about crushing and snorting pills instead of seeing his daughter. His voice is slower than normal and full of regret.
Side B features more electronic production and replaces disturbing memories with rhymes about partying and getting drunk and high, the kind of songs you would hear blasting from a car crammed full of teens. These are what his post-fame fans want: reckless, concert-ready songs to which they can party.
By themselves, the songs are just that. But when listening to the album as a whole, these songs can be just as dark as the first half of the album. Even after rapping about how drugs ruined his childhood, Brown continues to drown his troubles in alcohol, weed, ecstasy and countless other mind-altering substances.
At the end of “Smokin & Drinkin,” a seemingly fun ode to life’s vices, Brown raps that he “hope[s] that these problems just go away” and that he smokes “to escape.” During “Kush Coma,” a love letter to marijuana, Brown drops the line “Been smoking blunts since high school/ Now look at all the bullshit I been through.” Lines such as these hint that Brown knows he’s still screwing up his life, yet he continues to reach for whatever drug is closest to him.
“Float On,” the album closer, melds the two sides together as Brown remembers how music pulled him out of poverty. Now that he has found success, the stress is higher than ever, and he ironically drowns it in more illicit substances. But at the end of the day, “nothing else matters except [his] next rhyme,” as music is one of the most important things in his life.
Brown’s actual rapping is as diverse as ever, from his trademark high-pitched yell to his new, slowed-down spoken-word flow. The beats he raps over, especially on the second half of the album, are ambitious tracks that most rappers wouldn’t even touch, ranging from trap house to grander string instrumentals.
All in all, Old is a profound listen that’s entertaining from start to finish. Come in expecting a fun ode to partying the night away and you’ll be disappointed. But when listened to with an open mind, this story of how poverty, drugs and gangs molded one of the most interesting personalities in pop culture makes for the most powerful and satisfying rap album of the year.
