Written by Written by @bryce
Intro
Danny Brown is a pretty polarizing artist, and I can definitely understand why. He’s got this very crude and outlandish sense of humor. And it’s often paired with his very crazy, high-pitched, kind of yappy voice. These two things can come on very strong and are best seen in some of his earlier work. This is the reason that you either love him, or you hate him. This album in a way shows Danny kind of having a conflict with that version of himself. That’s not to say that it’s gone, he’s definitely still there. You can hear Danny returning to that on tracks like “Tantor”, “Dark Sword Angel”, and some others. But this album showcases Danny battling with the fact that he’s facing his forties. It has Danny at his most introspective and mature.
One of the primary themes of the album is Danny feeling unsure about the current state of the rap game and his place in it. He establishes the more mature tone and this theme almost immediately with the opening line of the album. He says “This rap sh*t done saved my life, and f*cked it up at the same time”. Danny Brown had recently been going to rehab because he’s had a serious struggle with alcoholism and substance abuse. A popular fan interpretation is that the rap game had been providing him with the funds and connections needed to fuel this problem he has been facing.
Down Wit It
There are also tracks providing some other interpretations of how the rap game has affected his life. Down Wit It explores aspects of his love life specifically. The track explains that he had a relationship that didn’t seem super serious like it didn’t really matter. He talks about how he had been caught cheating and felt encouraged to because of the conflict between his personal life and the feeling of needing to achieve a kind of rockstar lifestyle. “Lifestyle of this music sh*t had me on some stupid sh*t”. He had also caught his partner cheating, but in the chorus, which is nearly a direct quote from the Geto Boys track Mind Playing Tricks on Me by the way, he says he now realizes that he loved her.
YBP
There are also some themes that are almost political, which is not something Danny Brown usually tackles but here it’s done pretty well. The two-track run of “YBP” and “Jenn’s Terrific Vacation” is a prime example. YBP is an acronym for “Young Black and Poor”, the track has Danny Brown rapping about his experience growing up in such conditions in Detroit with an excellent feature from Bruiser Wolf. Danny details leaving wet clothes on the porch because they didn’t have a dryer, spending food stamps, not enough beds and sleeping on the floor, fussing in the kitchen, seeing family smoking crack, and friends getting shot.
With both Danny and Bruiser Wolf detailing their childhoods growing up in Detroit as such a dark and scary time, it’s quite interesting to hear the contrast with the beat, produced by Skywlkr and Kassa Overall. It’s a pretty happy tune being sung by Foster Sylvers, sampled from her track “I’ll Get You in the End”, released in 1973. It’s a kind of situation where if you don’t really listen to the words they’re saying it has a completely different, much happier vibe to it.
Jenn’s Terrific Vacation
“Jenn’s Terrific Vacation” follows this track. The title is a play on the word “Gentrification”, which if you don’t know is defined as “the process whereby the character of a poor urban area is changed by wealthier people moving in, improving housing, and attracting new businesses, typically displacing the current inhabitants in the process.” And that’s exactly what the track is about. This track features the more chaotic and crazier Danny, over an instrumental that’s kind of haunting and ghostly, complemented perfectly by a frightening whispered refrain by the aforementioned Kassa Overall. Kassa Overall produced the track as well.
Lyrically, Danny Brown covers what it’s like to live in and experience Gentrification directly. In an area once full of crack houses and sex workers being replaced with Starbucks and Wholefoods as many wealthy white people move in. It’s very interesting as it almost feels like it’s just a direct sequel, while the previous track details his childhood growing up in such an area, and then followed with this one showing what it has become and how it’s changing.
Shakedown
I find most of the tracks to be very good, some of his best even. But that’s not to say that there’s no low points. Notably the track “Shakedown”. After reading some other reviews from the community I don’t seem to be the only one. For me, the production is nice, I like the beat. It’s smooth and kind of dreamy, it’s got that kind of floaty vibe and I’m down with that. But I find the hook very repetitive and kind of annoying. It features backing vocals from ZelooperZ. And listen, I have no hate for this guy, I don’t even really know who he is. But they honestly just feel very uninteresting and kind of low effort. While I don’t think the track is outright bad, I just find it very forgettable.
Outro
And that’s really all I can say. It’s a new kind of Danny Brown we haven’t heard a lot from before until now and acts as almost a life update in a way. It gives us a nice look into his current mental state and his thoughts on his place in the world. How he’s kind of surprised that he’s still rapping, and how he feels it has affected him. We see the horrors of what his situation growing up and how these situations have evolved.
The album is about 34 minutes long. This feels like it was just enough time for him to communicate what he wanted to. But I find myself wishing it had a little bit more time. Every track is pretty short, and I wish it had just a bit more time to explore the themes he attempted to establish. Overall, though, I think it’s a pretty great album and I like where Danny’s head is at on this one. In my opinion, it’s got some good standout tracks. “Tantor”, “Jenn’s Terrific Vacation”, and the title track “Quaranta” being my favorites. The production is pretty stellar, with some name’s worth being excited about like “The Alchemist” and “Quelle Chris”. I would recommend it to anyone who hasn’t given it a spin yet. Make sure to check out our other Album Reviews to find out what to spin next!
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