Grade: B+
There’s Danny Brown the rapper, and then there’s Danny Brown the character.
As a rapper, he’s among hip-hop’s best and most original artists, one whose rhymes are every bit as smart as Lupe Fiasco’s and whose delivery recalls the off-kilter warble of the Wu-Tang Clan’s Ol’ Dirty Bastard. As a character, he’s a molly-addled mess.
Brown’s latest album, “Atrocity Exhibition,” lives up to its title.
It is dark, and it is ugly. It’s built around gnarled production and the bleakest lyrics of Brown’s career that put his addiction and depression on full display.
It’s a reasonable counterpart to Brown’s 2013 record, “Old.” That album earned him mainstream recognition for its electronic dance music influences and party-ready bangers, as well as Brown’s sharpest, funniest lyrics to date. It comes as no surprise that after the molly-fueled excess of “Old” would come a monstrous comedown of a record.
At times, the Detroit rapper seems all too eager to put his misogyny and drug abuse on display. Opener “Downward Spiral” sets the scene with Brown in his apartment, wearing nothing but a robe and a pinky ring, trying to make sense of his fractured post-stardom life. The beat is appropriately queasy.
“Atrocity Exhibition” comes courtesy of English avant electronica label Warp. The ghosts of raves past haunt some of the songs, particularly lead single “When It Rain,” the jagged, overblown synth spikes of which aren’t too far removed from label-mates Aphex Twin or LFO circa 1995.
“Really Doe” is another rare high, featuring Ab-Soul, Kendrick Lamar and Earl Sweatshirt. While Lamar provides the hook, Sweatshirt proves most arresting, his newfound growl of a voice more menacing than ever in its restraint.
If there’s a heart to this record, it beats in the one-two punch of “Ain’t It Funny” and “Golddust.” The former is a blown-out party anthem that, if not for the barely in beat bicycle horn wheezing away in the background, wouldn’t sound out of place on “Old.” The latter finds Brown in the midst of a bender.
Together, they show action and reaction at the center of it all: Brown has escaped the horrors of Detroit, but the demons followed. So did the drugs. Enter more demons.
It’s clear Brown is an artist fueled by drugs and their various comedowns, but he’s also a denizen of the Internet, nourished by blog culture.
He’s admitted admiration of Vampire Weekend in interviews, and the album title is a reference to Joy Division, a band whose legacy remains a hipster beacon.
A creature of the Internet, Brown understands the sick fascination of witnessing his endless hangovers and devastating comedowns. “Atrocity Exhibition” cashes in on that. But Danny Brown, the rapper, the character, the person, isn’t selling out.
