Danny Brown is a rap purist’s nightmare — a skinny jean-wearing, emo-haired “hipster by heart” who listens to Joy Division and professedly made his 2011 breakthrough album XXX “to get really good reviews.” He’s less likely to collaborate with other big-name rappers than whoever the indie darling of the day happens to be, whether it’s druggy goth-trap duo Purity Ring, grime starlet Kelela, or the recently reformed Avalanches, whose brilliant Wildflower from this year features two Brown cameos. That’s not even mentioning his yawp of a voice, which seems to take rap’s recent obsession with cartoons to such an extreme he’s actually become one himself.
He’s also one of indie rap’s most unique stylists and a devilishly talented rapper, as inventive with his shit-talk (“you softer than Flanders’ son,” he tells a rival on “Adderall Admiral”) as his harrowing narratives on drug addiction and life in post-urban decay Detroit. It’s easy to forget that he has been in the game for well over a decade; his earliest recordings date to 2003, and he was even considered for 50 Cent’s label G-Unit before they decided they didn’t like his pants.
There’s also more than enough for Nas-worshipping rappity-rap fans to like about Brown — his realism, his willingness to rap over whatever his producers throw his way, his admittedly fearsome technical skill, his rap-nerd credentials. If you ever wanted to see two genuinely obsessive rap fans geek out for 13 minutes, his interview with Nardwuar the Human Serviette — perhaps the only hip-hop personality with a voice as irritating as Brown’s — is worth a watch.
His upcoming WOW Hall show on Oct. 8 is in support of his fourth studio album Atrocity Exhibition, which dropped Sept. 30 on the vaunted electronic label Warp. If you caught Brown last time he was in town on his Mollied-out Old tour, don’t expect more of the same: Atrocity Exhibition is Brown’s bleakest and most out-there full-length yet, a bad-trip fusion of rap with psychedelia and post-punk. There will still probably be a “Blunt After Blunt” singalong, though.
Opening is Houston rapper Maxo Kream and Detroit’s ZelooperZ of Danny Brown’s Bruiser Brigade, whose exploits are chronicled on the XXX cut of the same name.
Danny Brown plays the WOW Hall Oct. 8, 2016, with Maxo Kream and ZelooperZ. Doors at 8 p.m., show at 9 p.m. $26 advance, $29 door. All ages.
