Old

Danny Brown

2013

On Old, Brown tells a story in one long concept-album arc. But there’s a twist here: Brown’s childhood and his drug-dealing past were so fucked up and squalid and desensitizing that they linger with him and haunt him; the trauma doesn’t go away just because he’s making money rapping.

And anyway, he’s using that money to try and forget about the terrible things he’s seen, obliterating his brain on every drug he can find, and it’s not working.

He’s able to find little moments of exhilarated escape, but he’s losing control chasing those moments, and he never really gets a chance to step back and appreciate the better parts of his life because that life is still whirling too fast. – (via Stereogum)