Danny Brown on leaving Detroit, getting sober, and finding happiness.
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It must be daunting music to make.
Jenns Terrific Vacation is about watching gentrification warp your hometown.
Down With It teeters over the void, fighting trust and substance-abuse issues to commit in a relationship.
Brown moved to Austin from his hometown of Detroit three years ago hoping to prioritize his health.
He looks and sounds happier now.
The last time you doubled up was 2011, the yearXXXandBlack and Brown!landed.
How is it that weve gotten this much music from you in 2023?COVID, shit.
We was sitting around so much, so I was making a lot of music, to be honest.
The majority ofQuarantawas recorded during COVID.
I mean, we worked onScaring the Hoesfor two years.
It was like everything happened at once.
It was a bad time for me, to be honest.
I dont want to be allSo, howareyou?, but … how are you?Im great now.
Ive heard you refer to the new album as a trauma dump.
I was thinking about all the classic rap that technically qualifies.
You could say Geto Boys Mind Playing Tricks on Me is a trauma dump.
As men, we feel uncomfortable being emotional in some sense.
The best way for me to get it out is through my music.
Now, I actually go torealtherapy.
I dont really have to use music as an outlet like that anymore.
Its not something I consciously do.
Sometimes, the shit come out in songs.
And it helps me get through it.
Youre gearing up to go out on the road, playing music you wrote in a much worse headspace.
How are you feeling about the tour?Im actually excited.
We did theScaring the Hoestour with me being sober.
I was really worried about it until I got into the swing of things.
With touring, theres a lot of downtime.
I get excited to play shows now.
I feel like a lot of my drinking started with being on the road and nervous.
Really, I was making shit harder on myself, going about it that way.
After Gucci Mane got sober, I started to wonder what its like leaving that wild reputation behind.
People love a train wreck.
But that aint productive for my life.
I dont care what people want out of me.
I care about myself more than the perception of me.
Whats healthier for me is whats more important to me, so I have to focus on that.
I cant care what other people think.
Ive never been that jot down of guy anyway.
How is your experience of Austin different from life in Detroit?I can live a healthier lifestyle here.
Its a lot less stress, just dealing with family and friends and living in sobriety now.
My friends still party.
I dont want to be Debbie Downer all the time.
When I moved away, it was initially to start to focus on my health.
I was dating a girl out here and going back and forth all the time.
We were getting more and more serious.
Then, I was talking to Tom Segura, who was moving to Austin.
It was a no-brainer for me.
I was already thinking about it.
Anybody can set a camera up in their bedroom and talk in front of it.
They take it serious, and I take everything I do serious in some sense.
Thefirst episodeimmediately gave me a headache from laughing.
You were talking about a girl whose parrot learned YG lyrics.
I feel like you could step right into stand-up if you wanted.
But Im still too focused on music right now.
Its still kind of hard for me to transition from writing songs to writing jokes.
I still really cant grasp the concept.
In the industry, Im hanging around more comics than rappers, and theyre giving me confidence.
But just like anything else, youre going to suck at it for a minute.
Ive got to be able to have the heart to suck at it for now.
Ive still got a few more albums in me, so I want to focus on music.
Ive been making a lot more music since Ive been in Texas.
Jenns Terrific Vacation might be the hardest song I ever heard about gentrification.
I respect the inversion of Goodie Mobs Cell Therapy.
I say Gods my ghostwriter.
I cant even take credit for that one.
I didnt think hard about it.
I had just moved to downtown Detroit.
This was before everything got shut down with COVID.
It was what I was seeing.
Every now and then, something happened and itd be cracking.
For the most part, it was crackheads and prostitutes.
But the city was looking good.
Then COVID happened, and it was a dark place.
I now go home once or twice a year or so.
Ive been thinking a lot about Detroit vs. Everybody, which features you and Eminem.
Is there a relationship there?
I feel like we should have had a long history of collaborations.I would love that.
I only met him one time.
Its kind of hard to work with him, I feel.
Hes got his small circle, and thats all he fucks with.
You cant blame him.
The new album is full of memories of growing up, and references to culture and crime in Detroit.
you talk about feeling stuck in the middle betweenBladeand Dilla.I always felt like that.
Its a crazy duality.
I feel like Im more of a street guy than a Dilla guy when it comes to my music.
Im a fan of them both.
I was the middle guy.
No scene really fucked with me.
ItstherealsBlog Erapodcast revisits the Wild West moment when the power in mainstream hip-hop music and media shifted dramatically.
What was your experience?The blog era pretty much made me.
It was hard when you had to rely on labels just to be able to post a song somewhere.
The first time I ever got posted on a blog, I was in jail.
My brother was sending out songs I recorded before I got locked up.
This CO that was cool with me was letting me come down on weekends because he was into hip-hop.
We would just look up blogs.
I was locked up for a year.
I was able to still tap in and find out what was going on.
Thats when Hip Hop Havoc was a thing.
We had checked Hip Hop Havoc, and one of my songs was on there.
It blew my mind.
I was like, Oh shit!
It made me feel like when I got out of jail, thats what I was going to do.
I was going to hit the blogs hard.
This is whos fucking with me.
Now anybody can log on YouTube and drop a song.
We need a little gatekeeping now.
Older guys come from the school where it was all about being original.
If you wasnt original, niggas didnt fuck with you.
You was a biter.
My generation is all about player hating: Oh, you just hating.
That made motherfuckers a lot nicer.
Im moving on to something else now.
I want to make music that reflects that now.
I didnt understand the power of that emotional shit.
People would hit me up about certain songs, like, That shit really helped me.
Id be like, Damn, I was fucked-up, and that was a sad song.
I just want to make music to make people happy now.
Im on that art imitates life.
Im not saying it aint going to be bars, because thats whats always going to be there.
I almost feel like Im being scammed.
Me and Peggy had this joke while making theScaring the Hoesalbum.
A lot of these rappers are likeFortnite.
Were the fuckingDark Soulsof the shit.
You gotta be listening to hip-hop for a long time to fully really understand this shit.
You gotta be a professional.
Did you playElden Ring?
What games are you working through?Ive been playing a lot ofCyberpunk.
I play sport games and JRPGs and shit for the most part.
I feel like Ive got stuff I need to be doing with my life.
I used to just sit around and smoke weed all day and play video games.
Now, I dont smoke weed no more, so games kind of dont hit the same.
You must rescue the joy of gaming from the association with using.
I got a Steam Deck.
I still buy a lot of games, but I dont play them shits.
Ive played the 2Ks and all that, but for the most part, I really loveCyberpunk.
I loved it when everybody was talking shit about it.
I played on a PC, so I never really had problems.
That bitch pussy smell like Cool Ranch Doritos.
I gotta put that in a rap.
Thats all that was.
I cant take credit.
I cant remember what homie said it.
Thats the fucked-up part.
I cant give him the props.
Your last solo album,uknowhatimsayin,was executive-produced by Q-Tip.
Once you put it out, you cant take it back.
I used to be a one-take motherfucker catching lightning in a bottle, just putting it out.
I feel like drugs and shit played a part too.
I was getting fucked-up in the studio and running through shit.
He taught me to have patience with the music and do a lot of post-work.
I might go back in and rewrite shit.
And you know how he is.
He might take ten years for an album.
