Danny Brown dissects the past in his new video for “Best Life,” a song off his latest album uknowhatimsayin¿
Directed by Augustin Vita, the music video complements Brown’s verses about growing up in Detroit with a potent mixture of profundity and humor. As the Midwestern rapper rolls through the beat, the camera seems to follow a group of four kids from childhood to young adulthood, chronicling a life of video games, birthday parties, family fights, hustling to get by and run-ins with the cops.
Brown released uknowhatimsayin¿ in October, marking his fifth LP and first since 2016’s Atrocity Exhibition. The album was executive produced by Q-Tip and featured appearances from Run the Jewels, Blood Orange, JPEGMafia and Obongjayar.
Brown is nearing the end of a North American tour in support of uknowhatimsayin¿ His next show show will take place Monday night, November 11th, in Philadelphia, while the run wraps November 19th in Montreal.
Last month, VIBE spoke with Danny Brown about his new album, and what A Tribe Called Quest’s Ali Shaheed Muhammad told him.
“Ali Shaheed Muhammad (of A Tribe Called Quest) was the first person to tell me, ‘You’re like the Richard Pryor of rap. You need to dig into that and study, Rich,’” Brown recalled. “Some sh*t you don’t have to say the way you say it, you can say the same thing wording it the right way and get an exciting reaction. A lot of times, I used to say sh*t for shock value. Richard Pryor was saying things for shock value, but it still had depth to it. That’s what I was going for.
“I feel like that’s the best emotion to have while listening to a song, is to just laugh at some sh*t. The only thing other than that is crying. To make a motherf**ker laugh at a song, that’s hard.”
