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19. Danny Brown: XXX [Fool’s Gold]

MP3: Danny Brown: “Monopoly”

Fueled by Danny Brown’s complex, oddball personality, XXX is a careening ride with its own kind of nervy logic. “I Will” is a lewd, kinda sensitive ode to performing oral sex that recalls Lil Wayne’s transgressive mixtape days; “Scrap or Die” is a totally un-snarky corrective to Young Jeezy’s “Trap or Die”, cleverly unveiling a side of poverty connected to the small-stakes sale of scrap metal to junkyards. “Bruiser Brigade” is pretty much a hardcore song complete with crew vocals, and whoa—“Adderall Admiral” samples This Heat’s “Horizontal Hold” andHawkwind?!

And then, on the absolutely devastating second half of the record, the other shoe drops and all the drinking and drugging finally catches up with Danny. So he projects his neuroses onto pill-popping college girls, traces the roots of his vices to a fucked-up family, and speaks on the damn near post-apocalyptic climate of his Detroit hometown until all the pain comes rushing right back on album closer “30”, a victory rap lap with a drunken horn beat, tugged along by a swaggering celebration of success and a nagging death wish. Danny Brown is loads of fun to listen to because he raps like a maniac, hilariously and tragically, about any and everything, but XXX stays on your iPod thanks to its precarious balance between being wildly unhinged and conceptually sound. —Brandon Soderberg