Danny Brown comes clean

Fresh out of rehab, he's rapping better than ever and trying to stay away from drugs and alcohol

- ANTHONY MALONE

DANNY BROWN SITS quietly at a hotel restaurant table in Manhattan’s West Village, staring off into the distance with a stoic expression. The outdoor seating area is absent of any other guests besides the rapper and his manager, but he’d stand out even in a crowded room: today he has on a vibrant look that includes a blue-gradient collared shirt, an extremely baggy pair of jeans, and the bright red, Astro Boy-esque MSCHF boots that had the internet in a chokehold earlier this year. When a waiter comes by to take any drinks orders, Brown immediately asks him to take away the alcohol menu. “I’m in a good space mentally,” he says afterwards. “I’m happy and stuff. I just don’t want to be around that right now.”

This interview was originally planned to take place in Detroit, Brown’s hometown and the place where his addiction issues began. Instead, we’re here in New York on an afternoon when Canadian wildfire smoke has blanketed the city in a grey haze. Since relocating from Detroit to Austin in 2021 — and especially since going to rehab this spring — Brown, 42, has been trying to take on a healthier lifestyle. When the waiter returns, he orders duck breast and a Coke.

Brown’s fondness for drugs and alcohol has been a key subject of the music that made him one of the wildest, most acclaimed rappers of his generation, going back to his breakthrough 2011 album, XXX, where he rapped about taking shots of Hennessy spiked with Molly and “sniffing Adderall off the counter in my kitchen”. Listening to him back then felt like falling backwards off a cliff — his songs were filled with adrenaline, euphoria and an uncertainty that felt thrilling.