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Legendary Detroit rapper and hip-hop experimentalist Danny Brown delivers his long awaited seventh studio album Quaranta, out today via Warp Records. Quaranta takes listeners to a place unheard before and begins to finally peel back the curtain on Brown, unveiling the inner monologues of an artist who’s mystified fans for over a decade. Over 10 years after releasing his breakout album XXX, a now-sober Austin, TX based Brown brings a more pensive, calculated, and subdued version of himself to the forefront with Quaranta. With his signature off-kilter production and his ability to trojan-horse bars about street-level Detroit and his surreal day to day life within it, this album is a testament to his longevity and legacy in spearheading avant-garde hip-hop.
Featuring head-knocking single and video, “Tantor”, produced by The Alchemist and new single “Jenn’s Terrific Vacation” feat. Kassa Overall, where Danny gripes with the effects of gentrification on his city, Quaranta arrives this year as both the spiritual bookend to his breakout album XXX and a meditative follow-up to this year’s critically heralded collaboration album SCARING THE HOES with JPEGMAFIA. When COVID-19 brought the world to a halt, Brown found himself in downtown Detroit, living alone for the first time ever. In that solitude Quaranta—an autobiographical and personal offering in a way seldom heard from the rapper before—was born.
“There wasn’t too much to do, so it was the best thing for me to do,” he says, “to put everything I was going through into the music.”
The album, mixed by Mario “Mario C” Caldato Jr., features masterful and enrapturing production from some of his most trusted collaborators, including DJ and producer SKYWLKR, The Alchemist, Quelle Chris, Paul White and the Bruiser Brigade crew, and lyrical contributions from Bruiser Wolf and MIKE. There’s no shortage of Brown’s typical blitzing verses over angular, mesmerizing production on the album, but the Alchemist-produced “Tantor” is just the kind of cold-steel contradistinction he’s been celebrated for throughout his career. The bars on Quaranta are diaristic in a distinctly Danny Brown way. First-person scenes from Brown’s early childhood and family arrive vividly on “YBP”; he tears into rising rents for two-bedrooms and new gourmet shops that now litter downtown Detroit on “Jenn’s Terrific Vacation”; and regret-filled reflections on a near fifteen-year rap career add depth throughout the project.
“A lot of people make concept albums,” Brown says, “but the concept is my life.”
Since trailblazing into the hip-hop scene with XXX, released on Fool’s Gold in 2011, Danny Brown has whipped ravers into frenzies across the world, appeared on late night TV, worked with some of the biggest names in music, and donned multiple magazine covers. He’s also managed to bridge old and new-school rap royalty (collabs from Earl Sweatshirt to Q-Tip to Kendrick Lamar) and link with the most grailed underground electronic record labels. These days, the lifelong Motor City native is spending his days in Austin, Texas, where he’s living a sober life and tapes his comedy podcast The Danny Brown Show with YMH Studios. Featuring guest appearances from friends and co-collaborators like JPEGMAFIA, Hannibal Buress, Adam Ray, Ali Macofsky, Logic, and Code Orange’s Jami Morgan, The Danny Brown Show reveals Brown’s humanity while also giving him a platform to allow his sharp sense of humor to run wild. A transformative breakup is what truly prompted the move. He recounts it on “Down Wit It,” a bleeding heart confessional of male self-reflection, and one of the many vividly candid moments on the album. Quaranta’s core mission statement–of growth, pain, progression, and the view from atop the hill–might be captured via the line “I used to sell a bit, but I don’t fuck around no more, I’m celibate,” from the MIKE collaboration “Celibate.”
Next week, Brown will host his 10th Bruiser Thanksgiving celebration. Bruiser Thanksgiving is an annual concert featuring a selection of Brown’s favorite performers and is a celebration of multidisciplinary musicians from different generations thoughtfully assembled in one space for the fans who love them. The festival highlights the city of Detroit and the Detroit community as a creative and cultural landmark. Past artists have included Lil B, Joey Badass, Sada Baby, Zach Fox, MIKE, Valee, DJ Assault, HiTech, JohnFM, ZelooperZ, JLin and many more. At this year’s Bruiser Thanksgiving X, Danny Brown is planning an extra special reunion show with co-collaborator JPEGMAFIA themed around their collaboration project Scaring The Hoes. The live event will take place on November 22, 2023 at the Russell Industrial Complex in Detroit, Michigan. Tickets are available HERE. Following Bruiser Thanksgiving, Brown will play a string of intimate shows in December to celebrate Quaranta in London, Brooklyn and Los Angeles.
- Specs Black 12" vinyl in printed inner sleeve in 3mm spine sleeve and download code |
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