This is part of Creative Loafing Tampa's new issue, The Year In Music. See and listen to the rest of our top albums here.
Danny Brown, Atrocity Exhibition (Warp) For this album, the Detroit rapper mined the depths of his post-XXX despair, and, following a pep talk with Nas, produced some of the best work of his career. Brown has always brilliantly played the self-aware addict, a rapper who intentionally places booze-fueled party jams next to tracks that depict the harsh comedown, hoping that our society will finally notice the interplay between emotional suffering and showy hedonism. Here, the party and the crash have never been more entwined as Brown's cocaine nosebleeds blend in with the red carpet ("Ain't it Funny") and his jaw swells up from long nights of drug-induced tooth-grinding ("Downward Spiral"). Few rappers have spoken as frankly about mental illness as Brown does on this record, and how substance use both subdues and fuels the inner turmoil. He wraps his voice effectively around bizarre beats, and hones his William S. Burroughs-esque abstract poetry, proving he is one of the most versatile rappers, lyricists really, in the business today. — Riley Huff
This article appears in Dec 22-29, 2016.