Danny Brown is one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary hip-hop. The 35-year-old Detroit rapper is also one of the few modern rappers to have earned true crossover appeal. On the one hand, his high-pitched yelping flow, experimental beats and highly personal lyricism draws hardcore hip-hop fans. On the other hand, his countless, immediately catchy club-bangers have ensured Brown airtime in clubs, festivals and radio. Brown’s third project, Atrocity Exhibition, is a return to his experimental roots and beyond. Atrocity Exhibition is unlike anything I’ve ever heard before – it channels post-punk, psychedelia and abrasive noisy hip-hop to make the strangest and most boundary-pushing hip-hop album of the year.

Atrocity Exhibition gets its name from a Joy Division song, and the influence of 80s post-punk is present throughout. A feeling of impending doom, like the one that’s found in the darkest moments of Bauhaus or Killing Joke, accompanies the whole project. The album chronicles Brown’s drug addiction’s (few) highs and (many) hangovers set to incredibly experimental and dark beats. The lyricism shifts from the party anthems of Brown’s last album, Old, towards the truly disturbing description of a downward spiral of drug addiction. The flight from the consequences of Brown’s lifestyle feels like watching a car crash in unforgiving slow motion.

Brown is no stranger to left-field beats that few rappers of his profile would employ, but Atrocity Exhibition takes this affinity further. The beats on ‘Downward Spiral’ and ‘Tell Me What I Don’t Know’ take cues from psychedelic rock and post-punk which creates dark soundscapes. Other grooves combine abrasive booming hip hop with strange samples, from horror-movie strings to tribal chants. Moments like the ear-shattering bass on ‘Ain’t It Funny’ or the broken rhythm in ‘Lost’ are unlike anything I’ve heard before. The beats are not merely strange for the purpose of strangeness. After the initial shock of hearing something that sounds like a synth-vuvuzela, it is difficult to keep your head from bobbing. Furthermore, all the beats on Atrocity Exhibition are deeply tied into Brown’s delivery and flows. He’s always been a theatrical rapper, but here the way he experiments with different flows and appropriates the rhythm of glitchy beats really serves to make Brown’s stories feel urgent and bring out the intricacies of the production. 

This is the sound of an album which has been made in close collaboration with its producers. A blessing especially in the modern rap landscape where beats and lyricism are often just forced on top of each other.

The lyricism is where the album reaches both its heights and depths. When the lyricism is good, it is an atmospheric description of the inner city of Detroit eating itself alive and drugs that have long since ceased to bring pleasure (“Nothing on me but a bathrobe and pinky ring / Your worst nightmare for me is a normal dream”). At its worst, it is mindlessly indulgent and profoundly misogynistic (“I be on the chemicals, she be on my testicles / Poke her with my tentacle then put her out my schedules”).

Granted, these songs usually depict empty drugged-out highs that soon turn into something darker, more introspective and intelligent. Brown has never been an especially political rapper, but songs like ‘Tell Me What I Don’t Know’ and ‘When It Rain’ where Brown turns from describing his drug addiction and sexual conquests to his childhood and the problems facing communities of colour in the US are lyrical high points. Regardless, it is disappointing that an album otherwise so boundary-pushing would fall into the standard hip hop stereotype of treating women exclusively as sexual objects.

The central theme of Atrocity Exhibition is explicitly stated in ‘Dance in The Water’. Brown wants to “Dance in the water / And not get wet”. While the party anthems on Old described a time when Brown was still capable of this, Atrocity Exhibition shows him failing to evade the consequences of his drug addiction and empty relationships. The album offers no redemption or happy ending, just a mind unraveling for 45 minutes, and an ending that looks much like its beginning. Within this hopeless framework, Brown and his producers have created one of the most interesting and original experimental hip hop albums of the year.