The free agent market after the fall of Definitive Jux was out of control. Albums in the works were shelved, while the luckiest of the few were able to either find a new label or still garner interest on the independent route. Poor Danny! Swain was poised to break us off with a Where Is Danny? when the fallout happened. Since then, his album title is the definitive question.
Turns out, Interscope knew his whereabouts and contacted the youngster. Now signed to the Scope, Danny! might finally have a shot at a career since the predicted Rapture did not happen last weekend. Here's hoping Interscope gets the album out before the Mayan calendar has a say in the end of days, unless they are playing it safe and strictly dropping it on iTunes. Then again, Danny! claims to be retired from rap since '06.
Now that Where Is Danny? has a home, re-worked production and a price, let's discuss Mr. Swain linking up with another famous Danny named Mr. Brown, a.k.a. The Adderall Admiral. Swain produced two tracks on Brown's critically-lauded The Hybrid release last year, so the collaboration is not entirely out of left field. On “Theme Music To A Killing Spree” the Dannys trade bars, sorta. Whether it was Swain's decision or a mutual one, Brown's verse is interrupted by Swain's input or you could interpret it as a shared verse emulating the classic call and response technique – the choice is yours. If you're a rapper named Danny, it's time to find a new career because these two got top billings on the namesake. Brown proves his gamer knowledge runs deeper than the Contra code with another classic reference: “You rappers is decoys / at the end of all the games you a bitch like Metroid” – still remember the confusing day I found out Metroid was a chick. Swain!'s smooth cadence is the flipside to Brown's crackhead inflections as he opts for tongue-twisters like “Me and Danny Brown / rockin' matching hand-me-down / letterman sweaters / damn, we some panty hounds”.
With all this said, why would we give money to Interscope and iTunes for an album we enjoyed, then stored to an external harddrive back in '09? The iTunes version has one new song called “Gone Danny Gone” and revamped production. The album remains a digital anomoly. Does Interscope think we're that stupid? Does a dot-art album art update mean that much to us, even though the record still lacks a physical pressing? Why am I asking the same rhetorical quesions that plagued me in '09?
Answer: Most likely I am being tracked by Interscope through an algarithm that noticed I frequently reference “Danny Brown,” selecting me for email notification of a Danny! Swain release purely because of my interest in “Danny Brown” and his appearance on the record. Gosh, the marketing machine makes me feel sick in the head.
