
Danny Brown’s been rap’s loveable oddball for years, starting out in 2003 as part of Rese’vor Dogs, releasing a four-mixtape Detroit State of Mind series, collaborating on albums with Tony Yayo and Black Milk, and finally receiving universal acclaim for 2013’s XXX and 2014’s Old. Today he’s announced the release date (September 30th) and tracklist for his upcoming album Atrocity Exhibition, and it’s shaping up to be one of the year’s best releases.
- Downward Spiral
- Tell Me What I Don’t Know
- Rolling Stone (feat. Petite Noir)
- Really Doe (feat. Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul, and Earl Sweatshirt)
- Lost
- Ain’t It Funny
- Goldust
- White Lines
- Pneumonia
- Dance in the Water
- From the Ground (feat. Kelela)
- When It Rain
- Today
- Get Hi (feat. B-Real)
- Hell For It
The fifteen-track album will feature Petite Noir, Kelela, and B-Real, as well as Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul, and Earl Sweatshirt on the sure-to-be-amazing “Really Doe” (can we talk about the amazing transitions Earl Sweatshirt has made, from making songs about rape with Odd Future at 15 years old to dropping critically-acclaimed albums and now appearing alongside Kendrick Lamar?). According to Brown, the tape’s influences include System of a Down, Raekwon, Björk, and Radiohead’s recent album A Moon Shaped Pool.
Atrocity Exhibition (a reference to the 1980 Joy Division track of the same name) will depart from the EDM-influences that coloured Danny’s last album, and will instead follow the same suit as XXX. Brown and producer Paul White apparently spent more than $70,000 on sample clearances for this album: in an interview with Rolling Stone, the rapper stated “I wanna make timeless stuff, so you’re gonna have to spend a couple dollars. You could have Rolex or you could have a Swatch”.

In recent interviews, Danny Brown has often stated that Atrocity Exhibition will be his most fully-realized album, as he’s ironed out the range of styles and influences that made Old an often chaotic record to listen to. While speaking on Sway in the Morning in July, Brown stated “it’s just like my career album, you know what I’m saying? I built up everything I did for this album cause this is the full flesh, it’s Danny Brown doing Danny Brown… now I know what the Danny Brown sound is, so this album is that”.
Preorder the record on iTunes today, and check out the video for its first single, “When It Rain”, below.