Music
Watch the Detroit rapper's 2015 lecture in full – and learn a bit about how his mind works.
Danny Brown dished up a lecture for RBMA last weekthat spoke candidly about his influences, inspirations, and where his music might go next. The trip inside the Detriot rapper's Esher-like imagination entertained us so much we thought we'd take the best of it and turn it into a little scrap book.
Watch the full lecture below – then read on below as we unpack all the best bits, including how to skin and cook an alligator.
1. Forget Dre – it's another Dr that Danny thanks for his early love of hip-hop
I love Dr Seuss books. I’m still influenced by them today. Green Eggs And Ham, that's my shit. The characters he was able to create... I felt like Dr Seuss was one of those kinda guys who was targeted for kids but adults could still get entertainment outta it.
Early exposure to the cartoonist's books, which Danny’s mother read to him at the laundrette when he was a kid, was clearly formative.
When I first started talking, I talked in rhyme. I'd be like, hi, bye. OK, they weren't like GREAT fucking rhymes, but you know... I been doing this since kindergarten.
No wonder the guy's in the process of writing his own kids story, in the style of Seuss.
“Dr Seuss” is often used as a diss by MCs to describe a rival rapper's comparatively simple rhymes but some of hip-hop's greatest have mined the Californian's work for inspiration over the years. Run DMC claimed to be heirs to his surrealist-rhyming throne on 1986 single Peter Piper while Wu-Tang Clan nodded to Green Eggs And Ham in 1993 on a highlight of their ...36 Chambers LP, Method Man (hear it around 0:50).
It doesn't stop there. There's a portion in one of the most acclaimed biographies of the cartoonist, Philip Nel's Dr Seuss: An American Icon, that suggests his impact on popular culture paved the way for hip-hop's emergence in 1970s South Bronx. Both Seuss and hip-hop use “poetry as a medium for political dissent,” writes Nel.
So maybe Danny's onto something when he suggests Seuss put him on a course to rap excellence at an early age. And if you're an aspiring MC reading this, you should probably head down to your library for a copy of Cat In The Hat.
2. Jack White was another unlikely influence
I remember a time I was just hanging out in that scene going to bars and seeing White Stripes play. It was cool, like, a normal thing to see a band play. Next thing I know they's on MTV winning Grammys. So it was like fuck! I could do that shit too...
- In lieu of a Detroit rap scene to get excited about, Danny looked to local musicians dabbling in other genres for inspiration when he was on the rise.
- Seeing the garage duo playing the same venues he was, seeing their unconventional, bare-bones sound strike a chord with mainstream America taught Brown that “if I make the best possible music I can, y'know, it'd happen because Detroit is rich in musical history.”
- Sounds like the two need to work on some music together. If only so Jack can atone for his last adventure into the world of rap...
3. He doesn't listen to his own music after it's recorded
It's so much of my life, I put so much energy into making it, I probably listened to it a thousand times before I even recorded it. So it's recorded and I've listened to it back and made sure it's good for other people to hear it, I don't listen to my albums. I make it, I put it out. I listen to it when I'm making it... You don't get high off your own supply.
4. Geeks ain't nothing to fuck with
[Wu-Tang Clan] was from the hood, they was on some gangsta shit, but they still broadened their horizons with their lyricism, with them talking about the kung-fu shit and them talking about Islam and shit like that. These were hood niggas who were still on some nerd shit.
Wu-Tang were an early love for Danny, whose own personality he saw reflected in the Staten Island crew's mix of street grittiness and impressive smarts.
Here’s a video of Wu Tang’s GZA rapping about the Big Bang...
There was always a line. You were either on some hood shit, or you were on some nerd shit. And I was in the middle, you know, I lived in the hood, so I was able to adapt to be doing some hood shit but at the end of the day that didn't represent me as a person. I played with action figures till I was in the ninth grade, you know what I'm saying?
His most sought-after figurine was this dude Blanka from the arcade game Street Fighter.
...who does admittedly look pretty badass.
The fucked up part was I would take these action figures, I would listen to Wu-Tang and would make the action figures perform like they were Wu-Tang... I was about to go to high school and I was doing dumb shit like that. Other guys were trying to lose their virginity. I was making my action figures perform Wu-Tang. That's so fucked up, I never told no-one that!
Wanna get in on the act? You can buy Street Fighter figures here.
5. The US prison system puts depressants in inmates' food “to stop them getting boners”, and other conspiracies
Saltpeter is what they put in your food in jail so you won't get boners, so everybody won't be all horny. I still got boners though. My horny ass was still getting boners. I guess it worked for a little bit but after a while I built a tolerance to the saltpeter. After about six months I was raging.
This particular theory’s been hanging around for years: that US government officials use saltpeter, aka potassium nitrate, commonly found in fertilizer and fireworks, to decrease libido in prisoners and members of the military.
So maybe Danny’s remarkable immunity to the stuff is less of a medical miracle than he thought.
Danny, we found out in this RBMA lecture, loves a good old conspiracy theory. His favourite thing to do on the internet, he says, apart from watching porn, is to read up on conspiracies.
The Rugrats, all the kids are dead. Angelica, she’s a druggy and she’s imagining all the kids still alive… It’s why Tommy’s dad is so into building toys. Because he lost his son and he’s so fucked up.
Spooky, right?
6. You are what you eat
I eat alligator every day. I got a theory. I don’t wanna put no more hoe ass animals in my body. I only wanna eat animals that can possibly kill me. So I don’t eat no chickens, I don’t eat no bitch ass cows. Give me the alligator, the predators. I put killers in me, so I’m killer! So big up to alligators, man. I’m on the top of the food chain, not y’all niggas… if you’re gonna eat meat, eat gangsta meat. I’m looking for tyrannosaurus meat!
According to Danny Brown, alligator tastes like chicken – and there’s some suggestion that tyrannosaurus meat may have tasted the same.
7. Danny’s follow-up to Old may be dropping sooner rather than later…
It’s been nearly two years since Danny’s grime-infused double album Old. New music may not be far off after a busy few months working on new material, thanks to Danny’s new home studio in Michigan…
“This one of my most productive winters I would say when it comes to me working on music. I was able to have my own home and my own studio. Before, in the hood, when I was couch-surfing and stuff like that, I would have to wait to rap ‘cos there was too much going on. And that might take till 2am. So I’d have to wait up till 2am for people to go to bed so I can fucking work on music!”
Bring it on.
Al Horner is the lecture dissector. Follow him on Twitter at: @Al_Horner