The rapper Danny Brown is well aware of his reputation as a freak show: a drug-scarfing, cartoon-haired hedonist with an unsettling yelp of a voice.

In many ways, it’s an exaggerated character, but the weight of perception is a load all the same — one he struggles with throughout his coming fourth album, “Atrocity Exhibition,” named for the first song on Joy Division’s 1980 album, “Closer.”

“Asylums with doors open wide/where people had paid to see inside,” sang Ian Curtis, who hanged himself before that album’s release. “For entertainment, they watch his body twist/Behind his eyes, he says, ‘I still exist.’”

Over the phone from his home in Detroit, Mr. Brown, 35, was frank about relating to Mr. Curtis’s morose themes, though he punctuated some darker musings with his trademark giggle. “That’s how I feel when people come to see me at a show — like this demented, twisted character,” he said. “Not that I feel suicidal, but we all have those times.”