Review Summary: "And it's the downward spiral--got me suicidal, but too scared to do it so these pills'll be the rifle."
See Kendrick Lamar. See a young black man who resists the temptations that pervade his tumultuous upbringing--drugs, alcohol, drug dealing, thievery, gang violence--of which so many of his peers fall victim to. See a brilliant mind in the making, a straight-A student. See him bear witness to the cruel, unforgiving world that he is successfully able to transcend, partly through his unabashed pursuit of rap, for which he has undeniable, innate knack and passion. See
Section.80 ; see
good kid, m.A.A.d city ; see
To Pimp a Butterfly : watch as each subsequent project he releases boasts increasingly impactful messages, rapping ability, self-awareness, musicality, and concepts; see the proportionality between his rising fame and wealth, and the steady broadening of the scope of his vision; watch as each dollar and pair of eyes is bestowed upon him, as each resulting ounce of pressure mounts upon his shoulders, how he channels it all into furthering the construction of a monolithic beacon through intricate artistic engineering--a beacon to transmit guidance to a deeply troubled Black America--of purpose, faith, wisdom, righteousness, and hope. Watch him as he soars aloft, above every other hip-hop artist of this decade. What is truly remarkable about Lamar as a figure in hip-hop history--and really, in that of popular music--is that not only does he possess some of the most impressive spitting capabilities, and possibly the grandest vision to ever grace a mic, but it is that his aim for these highly powerful weapons is, unequivocally,
virtue. And thus, watch him rightly assume his throne as the undoubted best rapper making music today--perhaps ever.
See Danny Brown. See yet another bright, young black man with a gift and passion for rhyming. See him make the wrong friends and begin to walk down the wrong path. Watch as he is slowly but surely subsumed into the very world of hedonism and violence that Lamar was so carefully able to circumvent. Fast forward to age 30: see Brown finally receive widespread acclaim and attention upon the release of his sophomore album,
XXX : an album largely rooted in the precipitated fear that this exceptionally talented rapper, with a "daughter that don't really even know 'em, 'cause her momma thought he wouldn’t make a living off of poems," may
never end up making it in the music industry; an album which centered around Brown feeling the weight of this pressure, and the consequent degenerative debauchery--mainly excessive drug use and promiscuity--that he engaged in to simultaneously alleviate himself of it, and to, conversely, mask the self-harm that he pursued to the point of potential suicide, which he ultimately confronts in its final moments ("the last ten years I been so ***ing stressed/ tears in my eyes let me get this off my chest/ the thought of no success got a nigga chasin' death/ doin' all these drugs in hopes of OD'in' next/ triple X"). If this admittedly weighty desperation was all Danny offered, we'd be left with a vapid, stereotypical hip-hop sob-story. Thankfully for him, he was consistently able to imbue his bars with sharp and comical wit, wordplay and references, flowing atop zany beats equal in magnitude to his idiosyncratic delivery: all of which left listeners either bewildered or immensely entertained by the sheer frenetic absurdity of it all. Then, see
Old, which, at its best, was an attempt to replicate the successes of
XXX by further probing the depths of its darker shades, into the murk of Danny's haunted past, and at its worst, was an exploration of his fortunately brief "molly-banger" phase for which, to many, he is known--slipping once again into the luring vortex of hedonism, despite having actualized his long dreamed of success.
And so here we are: our ill-fated protagonist has fallen to the steely clutches of debauchery on record twice now: once, as a coping mechanism for his stress owing to lack of success in life, and again, in unbridled celebration of said success. But now, he has an opportunity: a chance to clean it all up in order to finally do something substantial with his artistic ability and the extensive reach of his voice; a chance to, for once, emit righteousness and positivity, instead of further pronouncing his perpetual, self-centered corrosion. This time, his has no excuse; this time, he has the world at his disposal. But watch the pressure mount once again--the pressure to transcend his harsh background and emerge from his self-destructive cocoon as the proverbial butterfly, of which Lamar's masterpiece spoke on in its final passage. But watch as he crumbles pitifully inward, as his framework topples downward beneath the utter immensity of the task which he is not able to even begin to accomplish: to use his gifts to give
back ; to confer wisdom and hope to new generations living in dismal communities like that out of which he was born. Watch as he falls pathetically back into the only world he's ever truly known; watch him fail, miserably. Bear witness the only rapper with the potential to grasp at Kendrick's untouchable conglomeration of passion, intellect, idiosyncrasy and diversity, and, most importantly, purpose, in the limelight today. But watch as his talents go to shameful waste: with the release of
Atrocity Exhibition, his golden opportunity to finally transcend his past, see Danny Brown fully manifested as Lamar's polar antithesis.
Now, all of this is not to say that this album isn't worthwhile--it certainly is. It's a thoroughly engaging and exhilarating journey. The pure level of mania on display undoubtedly tops anything that Danny has released thus far. The opening track, 'Downward Spiral', quite explicitly heralds the mode that rest of the album will be operating in, referencing the title track of
XXX : yes, he's slipped back into the whirling, all-consuming whorl once again, and this time, he delving deeper than ever. Aside from a few tracks that serve to reassert his hood legitimacy, and what is easily the heftiest posse-cut of the year ('Really Doe'), the album's relatively straightforward narrative steadily follows his helix of addiction into a chaotic abyss: it's some truly demented ***, and it blurs by at a blistering speed, like the best of his work. But for those with the stomach and mental capacity to keep up, this is a truly profound rap experience, albeit in its own, hellish way. Here, Brown is sounding more confident and witty than ever, as he deftly navigates what are unquestionably the wildest instrumentals he's ridden thus far--and for him, that's really saying something. By the time the penultimate cut, 'Get High (ft. B-Real)', arrives, it's a welcome slowing of pace, and also somewhat of a relief to know that he's at least able to see the futility in his irrepressible habits, as he satirically points out in what is essentially the 'Swimming Pools (Drank)' of drug-use.
But unfortunately for Danny, the closing track, 'Hell For It', isn't so much of a conclusion to his maelstrom as it is a proclamation of his status in hip-hop as one of the best currently working,
despite it. And while this is absolutely true, it's worrisome that, the third time around, he isn't showing us that he's learned anything from any of it, at least insofar that he can articulate: there's no explicit lesson or message to take away from his affliction, and worse, there's no promise of change for the better going forward, only a pledge that he will continue to be one of the greatest rappers of this era. And though he certainly has the capacity to do so, Danny Brown's future albums are going to suffer severely if he's unable to pull himself together and tackle some grander issues than his own seemingly eternal internal struggle and crippling lack of will--and to some extent, this one has suffered from that malady as well. That said, if even half of the content rapped about here was based on reality, the mere fact he was able to pull
anything together for this project is an incredible achievement, let alone that it's one of the most rewarding hip-hop records that 2016 has to offer. But moving forward, if he's unable to shift his focus from his egocentric conflicts to some yet to be realized, greater purpose, then
Atrocity Exhibition will prove to be Danny Brown's last truly relevant album we've had the pleasure of hearing: because really, after three records detailing prolonged self-implosions, while varied in causation, if Danny Brown
still hasn't learned how to overcome himself, what have we left to learn from him?
