Imagine, if you would, that it’s a Sunday night in Nashville, Tennessee. You’ve worked the whole week prior, and you’re about to work most of the next week as well. You decide to take a night for yourself and one of your best friends, so you head over to Brooklyn Bowl for Danny Brown’s final stop on the North American leg of his Quaranta ‘24 Tour. You grab some food at the bar before the show and then head down the hallway into the venue. Are you with me yet?
I hope so, because maybe then you’ll be able to fully explain to me the greatness on display throughout the night. From 8 PM to about 10:30 PM, the music was almost nonstop, and each artist brought their best performance to the final show of the tour. You’d think at this point of the tour that the artists would be tired, right? If they were, they didn’t show it at all. As soon as DJ Raphy took the stage for a short set of Detroit house music, it was as close to perfection as a tour stop can be.
Following the house set from DJ Raphy, Bruiser Wolf took the stage. There was no real changeover necessary because Raphy is both producer and touring DJ for Bruiser Wolf. The Detroit rapper cruised through a short but sweet set of songs from his albums Dope Game Stupid and My Story Got Stories, the latter of which was released just a few months earlier. With a style that is equal parts E-40, Juvenile, and “a little ODB as well” (thank you to Zack Carlson for that catch), Bruiser Wolf got what I would call the loudest Nashville crowd for an opening act in quite some time. The man is poised for a major breakthrough, and it doesn’t look like he’ll forget who helped him along the way. Within the first two songs, he thanked Danny Brown for giving him a chance to be “a better man, a better father, a better person all around,” and towards the end of the set, he acknowledged that, “A few months ago, [he] lost [his] father,” before proclaiming, “I’m here for him right now.” If you take one thing from this recap, it’s that you should check out Bruiser Wolf.
I’m hoping you don’t only take one thing from this recap, though, because right after Bruiser Wolf wrapped up, Alice Longyu Gao took the Brooklyn Bowl Nashville stage to stake her claim to her self-given title of “the gay, Asian Taylor Swift.” Hers is a show that demands attention and forces the crowd to headbang, and that’s not something everyone can produce at this moment. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a complete banger in 6/8 time before, but I have now that I’ve seen Alice Longyu Gao. Her 2022 track, “Make U 3 Me,” is what made Zack describe her as “an arthouse anti-idol.” Perfectly said. With only three songs left in her set, she told us she was “going back to [her] roots, and that’s called ‘going hard,’” and then proceeded to prove that the only limitations of the human vocal cords are the ones we set ourselves. Very few artists have fully convinced me they are part of a completely new wave of musicianship, but when Alice Longyu Gao sings that “[we] are listening to the future of music,” I believe her. If you take one thing from this recap, it’s that I was lying before and you should check out Alice Longyu Gao and Bruiser Wolf.
Keep in mind: all of this took place before the headliner came on stage. And when Danny Brown did take the stage, trenchcoat and alien-eye sunglasses on, with a massive pair of rain boots, the crowd was not let down. His 2023 solo album, Quaranta, is viewed as an artistic successor to his 2012 album, XXX, and though it is primarily about his desire to become sober and turn his life around, the energy at Brooklyn Bowl Nashville was not quite as dour as some have claimed the album is. When Danny Brown asks on the title track if he can “separate the life from the music,” it sounds like the initial doubts of an artist who is most known for drug raps and insane public presence wanting to change. As the set wound through different parts of Danny Brown’s career, it wasn’t hard to see the difference in his lyricism across those eras, yet it never felt like something was lacking or that the crowd expected him to not separate his life from his music. When the time came for a run of six tracks from his 2023 collab album with JPEGMAFIA (SCARING THE HOES), Danny Brown decided six tracks of high energy were not enough, following those up with three tracks from his incredible 2016 album, Atrocity Exhibition.
Unfortunately, though, all good things must come to an end. After that nine-track run, Danny Brown shifted slowly back into his more introspective tracks, starting with 2019’s “Dirty Laundry,” before eventually bringing Bruiser Wolf back out to perform his verse on the Quaranta track, “Y.B.P.” The two Detroit-born rappers played off of each other with sublime focus and biting lyrics about their upbringings in the Motor City. Before launching into the last song of his main set, 2012’s “Grown Up,” Danny Brown thanked the Nashville crowd for their energy for the end of the tour, proclaiming, “We family, man. Watch out for each other, make sure you get home safe.” And though that would have been a perfect end and a perfect way to wrap up, Brown still came out for a short encore performance of “Side B (Dope Song).” I think he summed up the feeling of the night best: “Thank you, Nashville. I love you m**********rs.”
If you have been able to catch Danny Brown at any shows on the Quaranta ‘24 Tour so far, let us know below! Be sure to check out all of these incredible artists on their records and their socials (DJ Raphy, Bruiser Wolf, Alice Longyu Gao, and Danny Brown). Keep your eyes peeled for more live coverage throughout the year!
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