When Detroit rapper Danny Brown last played a headline London show in 2024, he was newly sober and happier than he’d been in a long time. He was so newly sober in fact that he was playing in support of Quaranta, an album which deals with the depths of addiction and is exactly as bleak as that sounds.
Latest release Stardust is decidedly more up tempo and as Brown steps on stage at London’s KOKO, it’s with the feel of a man who’s ready to show the world what he can do. Ripping into the album’s lead single Starburst clad in a fur coat that he's shed by the track's halfway point, he skips easily across beats which most rappers would be absolutely flattened by. It’s on follow up Flowers where he can really showcase his new direction though, with a (prerecorded) chorus from 8485, the first of many hyperpop features which get the crowd bouncing along.
