When Detroit rapper Danny Brown released his breakout mixtape, XXX, in 2011, he seemed to have emerged fully formed: the self-styled Adderall Admiral was a wiry, colorful lothario with a flamboyant hairdo and a honking, nasal flow, oscillating between thoughtful insights about growing up in the D and nasty rhymes about what he liked to do with women (answer: everything). Two years later, on Old, Brown is still rapping about daily struggles and balls-out bacchanalia, and he balances those dueling impulses even more successfully. The eclectic beats stoke Brown's clever, detailed wordplay: on "25 Bucks" he gets serious about the struggles of black America over a moody, cloudy track from Purity Ring, while on "Handstand" he bounds into cartoonish raunch atop high-pitched twirling synths and bombastic drums. Brown has also grown as a storyteller, and on "Wonderbread" he's able to make an engaging tale out of something as mundane as a kid's trip to get some grub.
