“I'm fucked up and everyone thinks it's a joke” is what the caption reads as the song begins. Danny Brown is known for his polarizing voice and his partying lifestyle, but he has also been very outspoken about his drug use. On “On the Needle Drop” with Anthony Fantano, Danny Brown explains how some fans took his drug more serious than his music and it made him feel like a spectacle. This feeling is what I felt was brought out brilliantly by Jonah Hill in this video.

Taking the form of a sitcom, Uncle Danny is struggling with a drug addiction while the audience laughs. His cast members, Gus Van Sant (as the 'father'), Joanne Kerns (as the 'mother') have a nonchalant attitude towards his addiction, while Lauren Alice Avery (as the 'daughter'), seems to be the only one concerned.

The video takes its first dark turn as it flip flops between an innocent scene of Danny in bed with Kerns and Avery to a blood bath in bed with both of them dead and him rapping. This pinnacle of this video is that Danny declares his dependency to a large Xanax pill and bottle of cough syrup before the Xanax stabs him and he bleeds out.
This video displays a brilliance that I feel goes unseen with Danny Brown. From crass lyrics to a drug fueled image it is easy to miss the pure genius it takes to combine the samples with a polarizing voice to create one of my favorite sounds in modern hip hop. Jonah Hill took this a step further by perfectly capturing the ambience of the Detroit rapper.

Connect with Danny Brown
www.xdannyxbrownx.com
Facebook.com/xdannyxbrownx