Danny Brown live in Manchester: a night of hope and healing from one of rap’s great innovators 

“I’m coming up on three years sober right now you know what I’m saying?” beams a truly energised Danny Brown to roaring applause inside Manchester’s O2 Ritz. 

We’re nearing the end of the generational rapper’s hour-long set and he has broken into an impassioned motivational speech about his journey and the hurdles along the way. 

“You’ve just got to work hard, keep going, never fucking give up on this shit. It didn’t start happening for me until I was thirty years old,” he thunders. “A lot of time I was making music and I didn’t know why, I just thought I was being cool doing rap songs with my friends, but in my sobriety I’ve figured out why I really do this shit and I do it for y’all.”

This palpable sense of clarity is central to the rap visionary’s sixth studio album ‘Stardust’, which marks new beginnings both personally and sonically. For this first full-length written and created through sobriety, Brown enlisted a vibrant cast of emerging outsiders from a new generation  including Frost Children, underscores and femtanyl to truly beam his sound into the future. 

Tonight we hear everything from the euphoric rave of ‘Flowers’ through to the glitching, violent hyperpop of ‘Starburst’. Such new cuts feel like quickfire shots of adrenaline as his breathless and frantic delivery flows over floor quaking basslines. It’s not long before he’s shed his signature fur coat and sunglasses and is pacing the stage topless,  flexing his muscles to match this reinvention.

With Brown clearly living and breathing this new direction, it’s unsurprising that new material dominates the setlist. 

There is still plenty of room for catalogue classics from across his career though. ‘Smokin & Drinkin’ incites an enormous moshpit as he spits out bars of a life he’s long left behind. There’s a similar reaction for the scuzzy punk anthem ‘Ain’t It Funny’ which summons the feral crowd response as Brown spirals across the stage conducting the chaos. 

In an age when it’s become standard for global superstars to be met with a sea of phone screens, there’s something to be said about the deep sense of moment on show tonight, from the minimal stage production to the colourful crowd which consists of metalheads, indie kids and hip-hop nerds alike. 

The reflective anthem ‘All4U’ is perhaps the perfect closer as he raps: “Devil in the rearview, I still hear you / I’ma keep going ‘til my life is over.” 

At the age of 45, Brown is living proof that it’s never too late for new beginnings. Yet having now settled old scores and navigated past traumas, you can’t help but feel that after all this time, Danny Brown really does believe he’s just getting started.