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Contrary to popular belief, Adele doesnt have a monopoly on naming albums after ages.
Of course, Vulture had to find out what Danny Brown thought of it.
Whats your familiarity with Adele?
Where are you at with her?I heard a few songs, the real popular ones.
But I cant say Ive listened to an entire Adele album myself.
So I wanna start withEasy on Me, which was the first single.
Have you heard this song before?No.
It has 283 million plays!
[Easy on Me plays.]
First impressions?Its a beautiful song.
It was pretty, real traditional.
It feels like the real, old-school method of songwriting right there.
Just, like, a piano loop and her speaking to the world.
Theres not too much going on.
So you really got to pay a lot of attention to the lyrics.
It sounds like something I hear checking into a hotel, you know what Im saying?
A very emotional moment.
It didnt sound like a wedding song to me.
Yeah, its some of the same Adele heartbreak stuff.
Yeah, and she said its her trying to explain the divorce to him.
[My Little Love plays.]
I was getting a little Kendrick Lamar vibes.
I really liked that.
I really liked that beat.
I really liked that song.
I aint know she made shit like that!
That was a shock.
I aint expect to hear nothing like that.
No, this is the first time shes done some of the stuff like this.
Its mostly been her, piano, or guitar.Yeah.
Thats fire right there.
Lets listen to this song.
This one will surprise you.
[Oh My God plays.]
So I feel like thats the most pop thing shes ever done.Yeah.
The breakdown, it went a little college-football crazy.
But then in the beginning, it was giving me some En Vogue vibes or something.
That was cool, but thats not my taste.
I mean, thats your 30s.
Your 30s do it to you, man.
It happens to you [if] you go through a breakup in your 30s.
Happy to be in that class.
So this ones called Can I Get It.
The title kind of says what shes talking about there.Oh, wow.
[Can I Get It plays.]
Was this produced by the same person, or it was a lot of different producers?
Its a few different ones.
That ones like, song-sequence-wise that was just crazy.
I dont even understand.
I cant wrap my head around how you make songs like that.
Hip-hop is so straightforward.
Like, verse, hook, verse, hook, maybe have a cool breakdown part.
But the way it is just so, I dont know, unexpected.
I never know where its going to go next.
It is just all over the place to me.
I dont know if I can do something I mean, nowadays, songs are getting shorter and shorter.
Everybody has this ADHD mentality now.
Man, I dont know if I could sit there and listen to a 15-minute song right now.
Like,Can I still date?
Can I get it?Its pretty horny.
This is pretty horny.
So this next one, I felt like there was also a bit of a thematic similarity toXXX.
Its called I Drink Wine.I like wine, its cool.
You do?Yeah.
I could see her, a nice night, with a bottle of wine.
[I Drink Wine plays.]
I really liked that one.
Thats her more traditional style of stuff, right?
And that was just, like, she was just barring up on that one.
She was busting bars on that one.
And then it went to some London-pub, soccer-game chant on the hook.
So I could see that really turning it up.
Thats probably my favorite one I heard so far.
I get that, shes tipsy now and just pouring her feelings out.
You know how they say a drunk person speaks a sober truth?
Do you feel likeXXXwas that?I was already fucked up, you know what Im saying?
She getting fucked up.
So thats a different side of the spectrum.
Im trying to get right, shes falling down the hole now.
I want to play just a second of this.
Its an interlude and it has Erroll Garner, who was a jazz pianist, on it.Oh, dope.
[All Night Parking plays.]
So its got kind of a beat to it.I dont know.
I like the piano thing, but thats probably my least favorite out of all of them.
I got R. Kelly vibes from it or something, man.
So I dont know.
A few people are saying it sounds kind of trappy, almost.Yeah, of course.
Thats because of those drums.
Thats what I didnt like.
That was an unexpected turn, but it was a turn for the worse for me.
He works a lot with Little Simz, if you know her.Yeah, I love Little Simz.
He did her whole last album.Dope.
Yeah, I love his shit.
[Hold On plays.]
In the end, it gets big and theres a choir.
[End of Hold On plays.]
That sounds like a hard song, like it took a long time to do.
It probably took months to make.
You got to respect that.
The choir is actually a bunch of her friends.Oh, dope.
And to me, this feels like one of those being-uncertain-about-her-30s pop in of songs.Shit!
What?Just like, its Adele!
Shes legendary.You think, people like Adele, like,What?Aint got no problems.
Youre good.Just shows everybody got problems.
No matter who you are, [youre] still a human being.
Ten years on, listening toXXX,the same could be said about yourself.Yeah, yeah.
Do you remember feeling uncertain at that moment, or confused?Hell yeah.
I feel uncertain to this day.
Nobody really could be fully confident.
Especially with putting out music I think everybody gets this nervous feeling of something when they putting music out.
I think if you dont, you dont care then, at that point.
I care too much about my music.
So yeah, sleepless nights.
Lets do one more.
Lets listen to a bit of the last one.
Inflo did this one, too.
[Love Is a Game plays.]
That was like some Motown shit or something.
I like that, that was cool.
[Inflo] showed he got so much range.
I mean, Adeles an amazing songwriter.
At the end of the day, thats what you take away from her albums.
Aint about the glamor and the glitz, or the Auto-Tune, or nothing like that.
Her stuff is just straight-to-the-point traditional songwriting.
And she makes amazing music.
As someone whos now been through his 30s, do you have any advice for her?
Shes 33 now.I cant tell her shit.
I need some advice from her, if anything!
What advice do you need?I dont know.
I really dont [laughs], to be honest.
So you got to love that.
You got to respect it.
A quote came out recently where Adele was talking about wanting to sing on a rap record.
Would you want to hear that?Hell yeah!
Shit, why not?
I mean, shit, tell her holler at me!
Something forXXXX.I would love that.
I feel like if Im not learning, then Im not really trying to get better.
Its just a constant drive to learn more about music, songwriting, and production in general.
To make my music that much better.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
