The Review:

Daniel Sewell, also known as Detroit rapper Danny Brown, has released his fifth project, titled uknowhatimsayin¿ From November 2017 to April 2019, he was pretty tight-lipped about details. The only thing he mentioned was that it was “being produced by one producer, who’s legendary in hip-hop. And it’s gonna be a big deal.” This kept fans guessing for many months until further information came out. I, myself, threw around the idea of someone like The Alchemist or No-ID or DJ Premier being behind the boards. On April 30th 2019, Brown announced that the person in-question that would go on to executive produce his album was none other than Q-Tip of the legendary hip hop collective A Tribe Called Quest. On September 5th, he released the single “Dirty Laundry” alongside its accompanying music video, the title of the record, and announced an October 4th release date less than a month away. A week and a half later, he put out another single, “Best Life”, and revealed the cover art.

His previous album, Atrocity Exhibition, was an absurdist full-frontal assault on how far he can take a sample. It is a unique experience from top to bottom, one of the most forward thinking hip hop albums of the past decade, and one of the best albums to come out of 2017. Songs like “Ain’t It Funny”, “Downward Spiral”, “Lost”, and “Golddust” would push the boundaries of his vocal tones, his flows, and distort the reality between his rapper persona and the person behind the mic. Despite the accolades the album accumulated, Danny went on to claim the album didn’t make any money, quoted in a since-deleted tweet as saying “Never spend $70k on samples for an album no one buys.” Fast forward two years later, uknowhatimsayin¿ probably isn’t going to crack the Billboard charts either, but those who desire a laid-back hip hop album that isn’t afraid to experiment and provide hard hitting instrumentals need not look further.

Easily one of the best hip hop albums of the year and true to his zany brand of hip hop, uknowhatimsayin¿ is one of the oddest and most interesting forays in Danny Brown’s discography. From his beat selection, to the production, to his performances and delivery with every track, to his guests, to the quotables, there is little that is lacking across these 11 tracks. If Atrocity Exhibition’s sound is absurd and cacophonous, uknowhatimsayin¿’s sound is hypnagogic and psychoactive. Some beats shake your body, some beats tickle your soul, some beats take you to a parallel universe where Danny is Mister Rodgers and you’re already his neighbor…

Danny Brown doesn’t pick beats lightly. The production throughout his albums is adventurous. It varies in tempo and fits the energy of the record and his persona. Some songs see Danny as a drug-addled sexually-driven party animal; some see him more introspective and unafraid to be emotional. It is because of this that Danny has garnered a reputation of rapping over just about anything, even if it doesn’t sound like hip-hop. The production on uknowhatimsayin¿ is jazzy, surreal, trippy, hard hitting, sometimes funky and/or groovy, but I want to focus on ‘surreal and trippy’. This whole album feels like I’m a guest on a variety show in Danny’s dreams. It’s full of colors and his friends pop up every once in a while, but, for the most part, it’s Danny calling the shots.
“Theme Song” couldn’t be any more fitting. It’s eerie, there’s someone whispering, and the subtle A$AP Ferg sample will haunt you long after it finishes playing. “Dirty Laundry”, produced by Q-Tip, is 8-Bit psychedelia; robotic kazoos provide the track its melody while a wah-pedalled bass guitar loops every measure. “3 Tearz” sounds like the kind of weird banger Danny and Run the Jewels would rap on. Thump thump, thump thump, thump thump. The way the bass line follows the snares, the warped slide guitar sample, the glitchy sound effects layered on top of the drums, it shows just how inventive using a heartbeat to frame a hip hop instrumental is. It is hands down one of the best beats on the entire album and displays JPEGMAFIA as one of hip hop’s rising producers. However, to put a spotlight on just how creative the production on this album can get, let’s look at “Belly of the Beast”. It begins with an off-kilter violin sample on top of a 4/4 drum pattern with some subtle reverb, but then the actual beat kicks in… No, seriously, it’s just kicks. In a similar fashion as “3 Tearz”, “Belly of the Beast” also uses a heartbeat for its percussion with two kicks in rapid succession. If that wasn’t enough, a very creepy chant appears in every measure during Danny’s verses. The sole switch-up on the whole album occurs in the end of the song as he finishes up his second verse: as the beat thump thumps, it then changes to this strange descending synth as if the beast itself approaches. And this is only the first of a few left turns in the album’s production that make for great surprises. Aside from “Belly of the Beast”, there’s the jazzy drum solo at the end of “Savage Nomad” and the way Blood Orange’s Dev Hynes creeps in with his singing on “Shine”. Even if it’s not as experimental as Atrocity Exhibition, the production on uknowhatimsayin¿ gives Danny more than enough space to be back on his bullshit.

Danny Brown is a true showman. He uses his voice in such a way where he doesn’t need an audience in front of him to perform, which has been a big part of his act since the Detroit State of Mind mixtapes. Given Atrocity Exhibition was so intense all-around, uknowhatimsayin¿ is, naturally, a more laid back record. Though, that doesn’t mean his performances here are in short supply.
His flows on this album are familiar, but still true to his sound. They’re nothing a seasoned fan hasn’t heard before, with perhaps “3 Tearz” being the most unique considering the way he raps and changes his vocal inflection over those heartbeat drums. However, he always provides a steady stream of quotables. His sense of humor follows him from album to album. It’s something you expect, but when it shows up, it catches you off-guard:

“Your bitch like a leech on my scrotum” (Belly of the Beast)

“N***a, this the theme song for bitch-ass n****s
Got a little richer, now their head all bigger” (Theme Song)

“The way she slurp slurp, she’s the quicker picker upper” (Dirty Laundry)

“Fuck a stripper for some change, actual change
dimes, penny, nickels, actual change” (Dirty Laundry)

“I’m just trying to hear a beat like a stethoscope” (3 Tearz)

“Hoes on my dick cause I look like Roy Orbison” (Belly of the Beast)

“Back up in this bitch like I just fucked my ex ho” (Savage Nomad)

“It’s the microphone magician, make the rappers disappear” (Negro Spiritual)

“If it smell like syrup, you gon’ get this work
but if it smell like perch, gotta disperse” (Belly of the Beast)

“Henny got me wetter than whale piss” (Combat)

I am positive, at the very least, one of these stuck out on the first listen. If it isn’t the string of lines that narrate his escapade with a stripper for the change in his pocket, it will be one of his wacky quips on songs like “Combat” or “Negro Spiritual”. Perhaps a completely different pair of lines on “Savage Nomad” or “Theme Song” or “Change Up” will call to you. There’s always enough Danny to go around.

In addition to executive producer Q-Tip, there are other collaborators present on uknowhatimsayin¿. Flying Lotus produces the track “Negro Spiritual”, which, when Danny begins to rap, sounds like what it must feel to hit the ground running. Thundercat’s groovy and fast paced bass provides the main melody of the track, and just as you are introduced to the beat, Danny demolishes his performance. JPEGMAFIA, who also produced “3 Tearz”, appears as hook support and evenly breaks up the intensity Danny adds rather than give it a hook. Blood Orange’s Dev Hynes appears on “Shine” to supply a funky, fuzzy performance on the hook, which is a pleasant surprise to what initially begins as a rather empty instrumental by Danny Brown standards.
The only featured guest rap verses on the entire album are from El-P and Killer Mike of Run the Jewels. If you’re familiar with the duo’s music, their verses are almost scary consistent in terms of quality. Their energy and chemistry is unparalleled by other duos in hip hop. They’re funny, bombastic, sharp, confrontational, and witty. On “3 Tearz”, however, they both deliver a merely solid performance. The energy is still present, their chemistry is not anything notable, but the verses here lacked the oomph factor that verses on their own records do. Sometimes, a quotable line comes through here and there: “Danny is dangerous, Run the Jewels is chaos in arrangements/Shit’ll give your fuckface a facelift” and “True DOOM eat up the crew like MM…Food” from El-P. “That’s goddamn right, I’m goddamn Mike, win in the end like Tina did goddamn Ike” and “I got an Einstein mind and I still tote irons” from Killer Mike. Mike and El set the bar so high for themselves with their past work that anything below their best is average. Nonetheless, their performance is entertaining.
The biggest surprise of the album comes in the form of a feature from Q-Tip and Tribe-affiliate Consequence trading bars, as their names are not listed as featured artists. Their verse brings the album full circle. Not only does Tip lends Danny his talents, he also lends his legacy as hip hop royalty to one of the genre’s most game changing veterans. A sweet surprise for fans who thought 2016’s Thank You 4 Your Service, We Got It From Here was the last we’d hear from A Tribe Called Quest.

Danny Brown has been pushing the extremes of what hip hop is for the better part of the decade since his sophomore record, 2011’s XXX. On uknowhatimsayin¿, it seems that he’s okay with not taking much risk, as the few risks he does takes on this album yield great reward. More laid back than its predecessor, it’s still one of the most hard hitting and creative hip hop albums of the year. Even if it won’t win over new fans, Brown’s performance and personality, as it always has and always will, make uknowhatimsayin¿ such a satisfying listen.

8.5/10

Listen to uknowhatimsayin¿ on Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Play.

The Pairing:

Danny Brown reps Detroit like it’s everyone’s business and rightfully so. They’re home to some pretty incredible food. Food that is, unfortunately, just not gonna be found here in Miami. Detroit-style pizza (it’s all about the crust), Boston Coolers (a vanilla ice cream float with a local brand of ginger ale), the Big Boy (the Big Mac was not the first to put another bun in the middle), and Asian Corned Beef (that one deserves a Google search). However, one of the biggest foods celebrated in Detroit is the Coney Dog. Yes, the Coney Dog hails from Coney Island, but some contest that Detroit reps the famous hot dog way harder. While I can’t fly you all the way to Detroit to have one, I know a place here in Miami that makes a mean one. For this week, I’ll be pairing Danny Brown’s uknowhatimsayin¿ with Dogma Grill‘s take on the Coney Island, also known as the Coney Dog.
Dogma Grill is a ways away from Mainland Miami at 7030 Biscayne Blvd, but let me make my argument before you tell me about the traffic it’ll take to get there. They have hot dogs of all kinds, the option to sub it for any of their other sausages, and if you’re not up for a dog of any kind, they have burgers and cheesesteaks. Their Coney Dog, however, keeps it simple; a tasty beef frank with spicy brown mustard and sauerkraut atop a long bun that’s cut down the middle. Their sauerkraut is a little more vinegary than others, but that’s a-okay. Some people like it that way. Danny Brown is a bit of a freak and at $4.25 a dog… Guess who I seen at Dogma Grill next morning?

Dogma Grill is located on 7030 Biscayne Blvd Miami, FL 33138. Check out their menu here.