Allen Poe has a good rap album out now that you should listen to after reading this post.
[ed note: this byline is not sponsored content. However, Poe once gave me a ride to a friend’s wedding in Louisville, in lieu of me ordering a Lyft. I’m pretty sure his real name isn’t Allen Poe.]
You may have first run across Detroit rapper Dopehead’s name back when his debut mixtape Plaid Palm Trees, landed up at spot 16 on Spin’s top 50 mixtapes of 2011, or on Danny Brown’s 2012 track “Bruiser Brigade.” Possibly you’re like me and never heard of him at all. Until last night, when Quelle Chris tweeted that Dopehead was one of his favorites to ever rap, the Motor City native and Bruiser Brigade member was off my register altogether. Enter the video for “Sunshine.”
As I worked backwards from “Sunshine,” it felt more and more like bait for the “90’s head” in me. There’s the dusty-smooth piano sample opening with Dopehead lipping the familiar “When They Reminisce” line and accompanying visuals of male and female breaker counterparts. It felt nostalgic enough to reel me in but unfamiliar enough to hold me while wondering, “Ok I think I’ll like this, but who is Dopehead?”
Discovering that Dopehead’s past work, it fin (perhaps a little too perfectly?) with fellow Bruiser Brigade member Danny Brown’s raucous subject matter, “Sunshine” began to feel less of a trap for me and more a a display of a rangy artist expanding skill-sets. I mean there are still lines about “finger-fucking bride maids’ at the wedding,” and I imagine Danny Brown fans will hear some nuanced similarities between the two crew-mates insofar as intonation and ad-libs go; but honestly “Sunshine” feels like Dopehead standing on his own two.
“Sunshine” ends with him rhyming “Real n*gga forever/ if ya people love you to pieces they’ll put you together.” Leading me to believe that his forthcoming debut album Beautiful Chaos seems like it will be aptly titled.
