Danny Brown

Danny Brown was born Daniel Dewan Sewell in Detroit on March 16, 1981, to teenage parents. His father, a house DJ, introduced him early to hip-hop and house music, playing him Roy Ayers, LL Cool J, Esham and A Tribe Called Quest, and Brown began rapping as a young child.

He started performing with local Detroit hip-hop groups in 2003 while selling drugs to support himself, and served eight months in jail in 2007 after a probation violation tied to a drug case. After his release he self-released the mixtapes Hot Soup and Hawaiian Snow, the latter with Tony Yayo, before putting out his debut album, The Hybrid, in 2010.

Signing to Fool's Gold Records in 2011, Brown broke through with the mixtape XXX, which earned him Artist of the Year honors from Spin and the Metro Times. His second album, Old, followed in 2013, reaching number 18 on the Billboard 200 on the strength of singles including "Dip," "25 Bucks" and "Smokin & Drinkin."

His high, nasal delivery and willingness to work with unconventional producers set him apart from his peers, and he can switch between that manic upper-register voice and a lower, more conversational flow.

After signing to Warp Records in 2016 he released Atrocity Exhibition, its title drawn from a Joy Division song, pairing anxious, distorted production with candid writing about addiction and paranoia. UKnoWhatImSayin?, produced in part by Q-Tip, arrived in 2019, followed in 2023 by the JPEGMAFIA collaboration Scaring the Hoes and the solo album Quaranta. A stint in rehab led to sobriety and the 2025 album Stardust.