Danny Brown’s Not Headed to Australia to Talk

Danny Brown is an interesting guy; his persona is split between being “a dirty old man with a pill in his mouth and his dick in his hand,” and a level-headed introvert who seems uncomfortable with his newfound fame. Last year he toured Australia with MED and was the more heavily hyped performer. But when he took the stage he did it alone and without the usual flock of hype guys. He performed a focused and at times motionless set that, though unexpected, was hard to fault.

Talking to him before returning to Australia to tour his first album Old it was pretty clear that his focus is clearly in rapping, not talking.

Noisey: Hey Danny, where are you today?
Danny Brown: I’m at home in Detroit.

Sweet, I read you got one of those fancy Bengal cats?
Yeah.

Do you get to hang out with it today, get your moneys worth?
Yeah, pretty much been sleeping all day to be honest.

How are you feeling about returning to Australia?
Yeah it should be fun, I like Australia

Any highlights of the last time you were here?
I enjoyed my time out there, I can say that much.

Just eating heaps of kangaroos.
Nah.

I saw your last show and was struck by the way you play live. It’s different to a lot of rappers. Most guys have fifteen dudes on stage, vocal backing tracks, and spend half the time chatting and making girls dance. Was it a conscious decision to not do that stuff?
Yeah I guess, I mean I think I rap real good; I think people come to hear raps, and not necessarily see anything else. I mean hip hop to me is just a DJ and a guy with a mike; I like to keep it that way.

When you decided to focus on that direction for the show, keeping it raw, was there someone you we particularly influenced by?
I guess anything I watch, like a Ramones documentary; I like the way they had short songs and just ran into the next song. I think that influenced a lot of my set.

I remember seeing Phantimus and they didn’t even say hi ‘til the fifth song in, and it just comes across as-
That’s cool to me.

Yeah, it comes across as being really professional and clean, no nonsense.
People pay money to see rap not talk, you know? That’s how I feel: I’m going to get out there and rap.

Totally. So Old has beena long time coming. Now that it’s done, do you feel like you can start thinking about what you’ll do next?
Pretty much. I write about what I’m going through. So I’ve got a lifetime of stuff to talk about.

I can imagine. Do you see yourself branching out and doing something else? Like if adidas came to you and said we want to make the Deezy, is that something you’d be into?
If it’s close to what I’m doing, you know what I’m saying? I don’t want to do something that’s too far off from what I’m doing at this point you know.

I like that.
I just want to do things that are unpredictable if anything, you know?

Danny Brown playing Laneway Festival in February. Tickets available here.

Follow Ben on Twitter: @simianlines