Casual fans will know Danny Brown from the industrial rattle’n’ clank bangers that enter listeners’ brains via pneumatic drill. Making chaos art with hallucinogens in its veins, Brown has been a man apart in hip-hop.
But a change can sometimes do you good and uknowhatimsayin¿ is a stylistic switcheroo that brings Brown consistently back to more traditional hip-hop forms for the first time since 2011 album XXX.
The three cuts produced by Q-Tip (who also serves as executive producer) are highlights: Best Life is built on a sample of Tommy McGee’s cheerful soul tune To Make You Happy, forming an interesting contrast to Brown’s warped vocal style and descriptions of a life hard lived.
The eccentric grooves of Dirty Laundry sees the Detroit star airing out sleazy sex tales – proof that orchestral changes haven’t sapped his oddball personality – while Combat finds Q-Tip harnessing a scratchy horn riff for a quirky slice of jazz rap.
These high points are marred by occasional awkward bits – the title track’s verse structure sees Brown punctuate every line with “You know what I’m saying?” to the point where it starts to annoy; and the chugging beat and surprisingly lacklustre flows of Run the Jewels collaboration 3 Tearz means the track doesn’t equal the sum of its parts.
But uknowhatimsayin¿ shows us that, cast in a different light, one of rap’s true individualists is no less captivating.
