Photos by James Pawlish // Written by Brett Ruffenach //
Danny Brown //
The Regency Ballroom – San Francisco
October 11th, 2016 //
Daniel Swell, better known as Danny Brown, came to The Regency Ballroom last Tuesday in support of his critically acclaimed album Atrocity Exhibition.
As an emcee with a cartoonish, high-pitched voice as well as a humorous lyrical style, it can sometimes be hard to take Brown seriously. This is the deceptive genius of the Detroit-based rapper — in between the lewd sexual acts and illicit drug use described in his music, there’s a deeper look into addiction, poverty and mental illness. As he opened the show with “Die Like a Rockstar” from his second LP XXX, The Regency’s bouncing floor started moving and didn’t stop for the next hour.
Diving into earlier tracks and moving forward chronologically from there, Brown managed to cover a large breadth of his catalog, even for a set as short as his was on this night. Dropping bangers like “Blunt After Blunt”, “Dip” and “25 Bucks”, perhaps the most impressive aspect about Brown’s performance is the cadence he’s able to keep up, song after song after song. And no matter what the track is, the speed and flow he is able to maintain is something few rappers can keep up with (I’m looking at you, ScHoolboy Q).
Although he only performed a couple of tracks from his new album, tragically skipping over “Ain’t It Funny”, Brown still managed to prove that he is a rapper in his own lane. No one can be compared to Danny Brown because well, there’s no one like Danny Brown.
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