| Danny Brown & DJ Sliink: Smokin’ & Drinkin’ Remix | July 10, 2014 |
Max Bell can sing a hook like Alicia Keys Summer music festivals have become synonymous with performances from the current crop of DJs du jour. If you’ve the funds or connections necessary to attend any one of the major festivals this year, you’re bound to see (or at least past by) one man alone on […]
| Summer Mixtape: Brad Beatson | July 4, 2014 |
Brad Beatson turns down only for freedom. In the summer, I’m looking to push play on a playlist and let it ride. It’s too beautiful out. And I know it’s inevitable that some drunken fingertips will hijack the music at some point to play what they want to. So this is my grand attempt at […]
| Frank N Beats Mix 004 | June 30, 2014 |
Aaron Frank’s girl just wants to party all the time Over the last few years, the rise of EDM has resulted in a widening gap between underground and commercial dance music. As a result, certain hallmarks of the genre, like huge drops and pop-inspired hooks, are being discarded by underground producers in favor of a […]
Will Hagle reverse engineered his backpack. In my head I am creating a roster for an All Star team of rappers that I mostly can’t understand but still recognize as genius. For some reason it is a baseball team but Tony Parker is still MVP, MF Doom is behind the plate in a catcher’s mask […]
| The Isolation of Detroit’s ZelooperZ | June 6, 2014 |
ZelooperZ raps like the world is going to combust. It’s not future apocalypse Blade Runner rap, but something that closer approximates the fear of current decay. The latest single from the Bruiser Brigade breakout is called “Isolation,” and you can almost imagine him rapping it from an abandoned building in downtown Detroit, squatting with an […]
| Finesse the Plug: Danny Brown & ZMoney | April 25, 2014 |
Love or loathe Gucci Mane, there’s no denying the scope of his influence. Young Scooter sounds like he came as an understudy to Guwop’s drowsy assassin in Spring Breakers. One of the guys in Migos could pretty much destroy “Wasted” every night in rap Karaoke. While Chicago’s ZMoney owes a heavy debt in beats, flows, […]
| Back For the First Time: “Hot Soup” and The Old Danny Brown | April 14, 2014 |
Max Bell is on a liquid diet You probably weren’t checking for Danny Brown in July of 2008. (I wasn’t.) Sure, you might’ve if you live in Detroit or had friends who attended The Shelter regularly. There’s also the possibility that you frequented Michiganhiphop.com, Hoodhype.com, or that you were one of the 11 people to […]
| Starlito & Danny Brown: Driving Under the Influence | February 17, 2014 |
Evan Nabavian only drives drunk on Wednesdays. On “The D.U.I. Song” Starlito narrates a night that begins with a few beers and ends wrapped around a telephone pole. He makes the Saved by the Bell reference before you can, and the characters, plot, and setting reveal a deft storyteller with a firm grasp of narrative. Starlito […]
| The Grand Old Party: A Review of Danny Brown’s “Old” | October 11, 2013 |
Son Raw makes 2 Live Crew look like some Mormons. Danny Brown ended XXX with a pained howl that would have made a fitting epigraph had drugs, violence or jail snuffed out his promising rap career. Thing is, that didn’t happen. Against all odds, the skinny jeans-wearing backpack-rapper with a blown out haircut and encyclopedic […]
| I Put My Hands Up on Your Hips, If I Dip, You Dip, We Dip: New Danny Brown | September 19, 2013 |
Danny Brown: the only rapper to make a molly song that references “Da Dip” and Mac Dre’s thizz face. To quote Son Raw: he sounds like the only rapper who has ever actually done molly. And Skyywalker sounds like the only producer who has done molly. I also anticipate this being a major anthem for […]
