Motor City pathos alive on Danny Brown mixtape release

If you don’t yet know Danny Brown, now you know …

While this local hip-hop artist doesn’t yet have the name recognition of a Big Sean or Eminem, Brown’s latest mixtape, XXX, available for free on Fool’s Gold Records, is winning Brown some serious hype. No less that SPIN Magazine lauds his “manic performance” chops and “sheer presence” in a recent essay, calling Brown one of the most interesting rappers laying down tracks in the industry today.

Excerpt:

Though XXX ends with the slightly triumphant “30,” which celebrates Brown’s come-up, it also imagines the rapper soon dead of an overdose; and it comes right after “Scrap Or Die,” which should rank up there with the Throne’s “New Day” as a recent rap song to be handed over to any old fart who’s still skeptical of hip-hop’s ability to be poignant and poetic. The song’s about a family so down on their luck, due to an awful mix of poverty, addiction, and our shitty economy, that they start breaking into the many abandoned homes described in “Fields,” stealing metal, copper wire, anything to sell to local junkyards.

Get more Danny here.