Danny steals the show on this album, but the production shouldn’t be underestimated, either. The beats were handled by a mish-mash of relatively unknown young producers and they provide a great backdrop for Danny’s tales of drug and excess. SKYWLKR’s beats, specifically, really bring out the best in Danny. The grimy electronic samples on tracks like “Bruiser Brigade” immediately remind the listener of drug fueled depravity in a poorly lit, trashy club. There is enough variety in the production to give XXX a lot of replay value, as well. Featuring electronic samples, as well as brass, pianos and the traditional drum machines, pretty much everybody is going to be able to find at least a beat or two that they really like.
While the beats are interesting and do a great job setting the tone of the album, Danny himself is what makes XXX. From the first track, we’re introduced to the concept as well as our anti-hero protagonist. It’s a (hopefully) dramatized version of Danny himself. He’s a melting pot of anger, depression, debauchery, and insanity. He’s on the brink of successful music career and the pressure to succeed has pushed him consume any kind of mind altering substance he can get his hands on. Tracks like “Die Like a Rockstar” show that he’s fully aware that his lifestyle is destructive, but establish that he really doesn’t care. Danny spends the majority of the album riding the line between hardcore gangsta and sketchy crackhead, using pitching changes to tilt his persona one way or another as he sees fit. As the album progresses, he tones down the sexual explicitness and sheds his persona that he establishes for the first 12 tracks and we’re introduced to a little bit deeper look at Danny’s life. ”DNA” and “Scrap or Die” tell of the hardships he went through before his rap career, from having drug-addicted parents to living in poverty and stealing to survive. He shows a maturity at the end of the album that isn’t there in the beginning. It almost sounds like a completely different album. It’s nice to have a little bit of change of pace, but the transition was too sudden and too drastic, in my opinion, especially for a concept that was working extremely well.
Overall, XXX is an album that you are either going to absolutely love or absolutely hate. Danny’s delivery and lyrics are extremely polarizing. If you take it too seriously, you’re going to be horrified by some of the explicitly violent or sexual (often both) things Danny says here. I think the reason for the sudden change in pace halfway through the album is to establish that he’s not really the person that he pretends to be for the first half, though. While I think the transition from part 1 to part 2 could have been done more smoothly, the shift was probably necessary. It puts a relate-able human face on Danny. It’s hard to sympathize with a character whose primary concerns are doing drugs caving girls’ faces in with his penis, but give him drug addicted parents and a rough upbringing and suddenly he’s less of a villain than a tragic, cautionary tale. XXX is going to be remembered for the persona Danny adopts in the first half, rather than the introspection we see in the second, though. He’s crude, he’s abrasive, he’s annoying, he’s just an overall awful person, and I loved it.
Best Tracks: XXX, Die Like a Rockstar, Monopoly, Blunt after Blunt, 30
Overall: 89/100
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