Danny Brown, the Rap Game David Ruffin

Danny Brown is the new Ol’ Dirty Bastard, but not in the sense that he really sounds anything like the late great Wu-Tang rapper. He’s the new ODB because like Dirt McGirt he is completely original, totally unhinged, debauched, and defiantly weird at every turn. There is no father to his style. Fitting then that his new single is titled “ODB.” Unsurprisingly, he made sure to bring his A-game when name-checking Big Baby Jesus, and he absolutely destroys Paul White’s eerie prog rock beat. At this point White has earned his place among the best psychedelic beat makers of all time, and his instrumental opus Paul White & The Purple Brain has remained in rotation for the last three years. We’ll all be blessed if he has more beats on OLD, which will also feature Freddie Gibbs, Schoolboy Q, A$AP Rocky, Purity Ring, SKYWALKR, Charli XCX, A-Trak, and Rustie. To top things off, Ruff Mercy, the best rap video director out right now, made a suitably trippy video to accompany the song. But even without Ruff Mercy videos or Paul White beats, Brown is still the drug-crazed visionary we’ve come to expect since XXX. Bitch, he’s David Ruffin in ruffles, no stuffing, bundles of Peruvian snow with his shirt tucked in. May he never change.

OLD is out on September 30.