Album Review: Stardust by Danny Brown
After rehab and reflection, Detroit’s most chaotic raconteur swaps acid‑fried blur for hyperpop clarity. Stardust is his first fully sober record, and it’s bracingly fun and unsettlingly vulnerable.
Danny Brown entered Stardust on the other side of survival. In 2024, he’d been seriously considering quitting music; he took one last drink before boarding a plane to rehab, underscoring how bleak his life looked. Rehab gave him time to listen—to 100 Gecs on a borrowed phone—and to imagine a path forward that didn’t require obliteration. Since Quaranta, a record literally made in the maw of addiction, Brown has been rebuilding. Sobriety didn’t erase his demons; it altered the way he narrates them. Stardust is the product of that recalibration: his first album made entirely sober, a hyperpop-leaning opus that channels his jagged humor and lucid horror into something both volatile and self-aware.
Brown describes Stardust as the sequel to Quaranta’s prequel. Rehab forced him to relearn how to write: he adopted The Artist’s Way to rebuild creative habits, created the alter-ego “Dusty Star” to tell his story like a ‘90s pop star, and enlisted Frost Children’s Angel Prost to deliver spoken-word “fanmail” interludes. He turned to Jesse Taconelli—manager of the digicore artist Jane Remover—as a personal A&R, which led him to underground collaborators such as underscores, Femtanyl, and 8485. The result is a record that stretches Detroit rap into the glitchy landscapes of hyperpop without surrendering Brown’s Detroit lineage. Where Quaranta was introspective to the point of paralysis, Stardust pushes forward at an almost manic pace.
Brown didn’t stumble upon hyperpop out of trend-chasing. Growing up housebound in Detroit, he was one of the first kids on his block to download Napster. Digging through mislabeled MP3s introduced him to UK grime and Dizzee Rascal—influences that still ring out on Stardust. His rehab listening to underscores’ 2023 album Wallsocket helped him fall back in love with music. Brown’s curiosity extends to Femtanyl and 8485; he’s “tapped into the scene,” finding kids with 300 monthly listeners and giving them a platform. His curatorial vision is the animating force behind Stardust, and it shows in how each track swerves between sugar-rush pop and digital abrasion.
The title song, released ahead of the album, is the manifesto. Brown spits over an industrial-electronic beat with a breakdown that’s unexpected if you’re a casual fan, but this is a different territory sonically. It’s a club slammer whose rattling energy never eases—its arpeggiated keys whir like an overclocked Sega console while Brown’s rhymes ricochet off each other. His voice—still nasally, still prone to stretching vowels until they crack—sounds sharper than it has since XXX, but the distortions are gone; you can hear every grin and growl. Frost Children’s Angel Prost ends the song with a spoken-word outro, part love letter and part hallucination, reintroducing Dusty Star to the world. The video, with Brown lifting weights and dripping black sludge, literalizes the physical exertion of staying sober.
The humor—horror interplay sprouts immediately. Brown is hilarious even when he’s rapping about paranoia. “I ponder going bonkers and knocking out your chompers,” he raps later in the record. His punchlines land because they’re delivered between descriptions of mental health collapse and financial hustle. The album’s tone whiplashes on purpose: he’ll crack a joke and then undercut it with a nightmare. Unlike his earlier work, though, there’s less weed-hazy mumbling and more enunciation; he raps like someone savoring the ability to think clearly.
“Copycats,” a collaboration with underscores, trades the industrial energy of “Starburst” for something closer to Charli XCX’s BRAT filtered through Detroit bass. Its beat is energetic, techno-inspired with a dance-floor tempo reminiscent of Charli’s records. Underscores’ hook, pitched up like a cartoon chant, drips sarcasm: “rap star, rap star, we some rap stars.” Brown plays the villain and the jester, bragging about cash and originality while taking shots at imitators; his quotables include “Get what you want, not what you ask for… choose my path to walk, the straight narrow.” His flow darts between yelps and half-sung cadences, matching the track’s neon pulse. The clash of Brown’s rough timbre with underscores’ glossy production encapsulates the record’s tension: can the grit of Detroit sit inside hyperpop sheen without dissolving? Here, mostly, yes.
The grime influence returns on “Baby.” They studied Dizzee Rascal’s “I Luv U” to replicate its double claps, squeaks, and busted car-speaker bass. The result is gabber-paced and jittery. Brown’s verses are almost percussive; he treats every syllable like a hi-hat. “Baby” feels like the product of that search: raw edges, no smoothing for mainstream consumption. It’s one of the most exhilarating songs here, and its placement in the album’s midsection jolts the momentum just as Brown’s introspection threatens to lull.
When the album shifts into pop, Brown refuses to sand himself down. “Flowers” (with 8485) would sound like a radio-ready house track if not for his nasal, yowling voice adding a snotty edge. 8485’s bubblegum melody floats above deep synths, but Brown’s verses drag it back to the gutter with cartoonish threats. On “Lift You Up,” one of the few solo songs, he slows his delivery, relishing his ability to breathe. The beat is skeletal compared to the rest of the record, built on clipped drums and whirring synths. Here, Brown raps about supporting friends and fans rather than indulging in self-mythology, with a tone more paternal than manic. It’s not redemption porn. It’s survival as work.
Even though Brown is sober, Stardust isn’t clean. “1999,” with JOHNNASCUS, is a painfully trebly, glitching chiptune at a gabber-like pace. The beat sounds like the world’s worst dial-up tone set to 160 BPM, and JOHNNASCUS’ screamo vocals shred through the mix. Brown matches the energy with one of his most aggressive performances, his voice cracking as he name-checks Y2K anxieties. It’s exhilarating for one spin and borderline unlistenable for three, which is part of the point: sobriety doesn’t guarantee comfort.
IssBrokie’s duet “Whatever the Case” dives into trap metal. Brown’s madcap energy finds a home in this trap metal gem. The guitars squeal; the drums blast; Brown raps like he’s at a hardcore show. Femtanyl’s feature on “1L0v3myl1f3!” flips positivity into sonic chaos. The beat sounds like someone playing an old happy hardcore track on a turntable with a knackered stylus, complete with half-speed drops that feel like metal breakdowns. Brown shouts about loving his life over the glitching, and Femtanyl’s vocals twist into high-pitched exclamations. It’s messy but thrilling—ecstatic self-love rendered through broken machinery. Nnamdi appears on “Right from Wrong,” where Brown admits to his missteps. The beat is spare, letting his new clarity cut through. He plays with tempo, weaving between double-time and slow-crawl flows, exploring morality without turning confessional. It isn’t as immediate as the bangers, but his willingness to pause adds weight to the album’s emotional arc.
If Stardust has a structural flaw, it’s that its scattershot sequencing mirrors Brown’s restless mind to the point of overload. The spoken-word interludes from Angel Prost tie the narrative together—poems that coax Dusty Star back to purpose—but they can also yank the listener out of a groove. “Book of Daniel,” the opener with Quadeca, presents Brown’s statement of purpose; his bars are impassioned, but the beat leans toward Britpop uplift, which feels at odds with his jagged delivery. The contrast is intentional; Brown wants to show you he can rap over anything. Still, it softens the album’s impact at the outset.
Quadeca achieved better results on “What You See,” a lengthy, rueful apology for past behavior, even quoting Outkast’s “Ms. Jackson.” Brown raps about hurting those he loves and trying to make amends, his voice cracking on certain lines. Quadeca’s production fuses crisp drums with sparkling synths; the tension between remorse and sonic euphoria feels like Brown’s sobriety: clear, but still haunted. The Frost Children collaboration “Green Light” pairs Brown’s high-pitched yelps with their shimmering harmonies; the beat straddles EDM and punk. He sounds like he’s rapping over a power-up screen, his verses about seizing opportunity. There’s genuine joy here, even if the sonic palette is chaotic.
The album’s centerpiece is “The End,” an eight-minute epic produced by Cynthoni (formerly Sewerslvt). The track begins with gentle piano and Zheani’s eerie vocals before ta Ukrainka’s indie-pop sweetness enters. Brown raps about sobriety, regret, and resilience, his flow gliding over jungle breaks and breakcore blasts. Halfway through, the song erupts into a nightmarish collage of chattering voices. Brown’s voice fights to be heard, and he sounds possessed—this is sobriety as a daily battle, not a tidy ending. The track’s length allows him to process in real time; by the end, he doesn’t resolve his struggles, but he does find a moment of peace when the beat briefly strips back. It’s one of the best things he’s ever made.
The closer “All4U” with Jane Remover provides the record’s only overt declaration of gratitude. Brown boasts, “I made it here against the odds, now I do it all for you.” Jane Remover’s vocals soar over swirling synths, offering a futuristic R&B counterpoint. The optimism is earned; Brown isn’t preaching sobriety so much as relishing his ability to make music sober. Brown doesn’t care what critics think—if he’s happy, that’s what matters. That attitude permeates Stardust. It’s a messy record driven by the joy of creation rather than the need for external validation.
Stardust is the rare late-career record that deepens, rather than dilutes, an artist’s legacy. Danny Brown could have coasted on Quaranta’s introspective goodwill or defaulted to the dusty boom-bap beloved by aging rappers. Instead, he rebuilt himself as a hyperpop conduit, amplifying trans and queer collaborators and refracting Detroit’s lineage through glitch. The album isn’t perfect: some production choices grate, and its length plus interludes can make it feel scattershot. Yet its highs are among the best music Brown has made. It’s a document of recovery as mutation, not redemption—a portrait of someone who hasn’t lost his restlessness even as he learns to live.
Great (★★★★☆)
Favorite Track(s): “Starburst,” “Baby,” “The End”