The first thing you notice is Danny Brown’s voice. Nasally, almost high-pitched. Bit of a bounce. Then his words hit you: “Colder than them grits they fed slaves / Me to rap is like water to raves / AK’s with bayonets on deck, rep my set / Sorta like Squidward and his clarinet.”

Danny Brown came straight outta Detroit with his second studio album XXX (released in August 2011), introducing a boisterous, but mostly blunt, new voice to the hip-hop landscape. His perspective is peppered with candor and high-def lyrics, whether rhyming about coming up (“30”) or going down (“I Will”). The project commemorated Brown’s age when it dropped (30) and the introspection that often accompanies embarking on a fourth decade on Earth. XXX was his first project to be released on Fool’s Gold Records, and its success made it a model for the label’s future releases.

Production wizard and Fool’s Gold founder A-Trak linked up with Genius to reflect on Danny Brown’s sophomore LP XXX, five years after its release, in his own words. —As told to John Kennedy

Danny Brown has such a strong identity. A sense of who he is and what he stands for. He’s so not a follower. His voice being so unique just contributes to that. His subject matter, what he listens to, his choice of producers. He knows what he likes. Danny Brown is a genius.

We signed him after The Hybrid; XXX was his first project with Fool’s Gold. It was different from the process of our other artists. Danny is very autonomous. He’s one of the first people I know who was literally getting beats from people on Twitter. Five years ago people were still in the older paradigm of seeking out producers with an established name—Danny just knows how to find cool shit.

He would isolate himself for a period while trying stuff out, record batches of songs. The level of detail and visual representation of coming up in Detroit, he’d done that in projects before but XXX is the album where he really laid himself bare and talked about his life. It’s self-reflective and so honest. Everything from the song “Fields,” where it’s like I’m from Southfield—the slums and a rundown city, to stories about his uncle and crack in the family. And he was openly talking about his own drug use.

At that point, rap was going into a shift. Rap’s relationship with drugs was interesting. Before that era, most rappers would talk about drugs in the sense of selling—being hustlers. Then Danny comes in comparing himself to fucking Janis Joplin and John Belushi on songs like “Die Like A Rockstar.” And “Adderall Admiral.” That was new, different, and brave in a sense. It’s something that people tend to hide. Not even saying he was proud of it; he was just saying, "This is me.” Artistically, that’s a really strong statement.

On a musical level, Danny is an expert craftsman. He’s truly an album artist—he pays so much attention to detail. He’s great at making track listings. The first and last songs are always really strategic. When the album’s done it makes perfect sense, there’s never a song that doesn’t belong.

Once Danny was done, he really wanted to get XXX out. it was still kind of rough sonically—we didn’t get a chance to get these records professionally mixed—but that’s how Danny wanted it. So Fool’s Gold tried something, which was still kinda new five years ago: We gave it away as a free download. It was free for months, because Danny wasn’t really known yet. But the music was so good it started spreading, and getting incredible reviews in the press. Next thing you know he became a festival artist—that’s when we started selling the album, months later. When El-P asked if I’d be down to release this new collaboration with Killer Mike, which turned into Run the Jewels, it was directly because of the way we handled the Danny Brown XXX release.

When we did the Old album later, both Danny and ourselves approached the project with a bit more professionalism on the sonics. Spending two months on just getting the whole thing mixed. Clearing samples before it comes out. It was a little bit more structured. XXX was more like experimental recording, witnessing this crazy moment of creation and just getting the shit out. Free downloads. Let the people discover it. It was awesome to be part of that process.