Overlooked may be a strong term, but this album by Danny Brown remains, for me, a trailblazer. There’s an old adage that goes, “you’re only as good as your friends” . I believe this is as true of artists and their collaborative colleagues. Featured here are Kendrick Lamar; Kelela, Be Real, Petite Noir and Earl Sweatshirt.
Atrocity Exhibition, released in 2016 through Warp, is stunning. It’s gritty, neon and concrete; a word of danger and shadows. The city of Detroit and its rough -hewn architecture seems to be soaked into the album’s foundations. It’s punk as it is hip hoo: spiky, sparse and uncompromising. I’m guessing Iggy Pop is a fan.
Brown was definitely finding his voice here. It’s salty, high pitched like an alarm, deeply sardonic. He’d struggled with addiction, depression and imposter syndrome when his career took off, and this is seemingly an attempt to come to terms with all of that baggage. Tracks like ‘Really Doe’, ‘From The Ground’ and ‘Rolling Stone’ could have been recorded yesterday. Its influence cannot be underestimated.
Hit The North 