It’s a given that everyone who grew up in Detroit after Eminem took over the hip hop world was directly influenced by him. A city native, Eminem proved to a generation that no matter the squalor and struggles that a city like Detroit could pose to its inhabitants, it was possible to emerge as a fully-formed artist capable of changing the music world. Eminem’s rise was more impactful for a performer like Danny Brown than most.
Brown has never been shy about his adoration for Eminem and, when given a chance to heap some praise on the ‘Just Like Me’ rapper, Brown delivered an emotional response. Asked to pick out some of his favourite moments of Em’s career, there was one moment that stuck out above the rest.
“When I met him, to be honest,” says Brown when asked for his favourite Eminem moment. “We were actually in Belgium playing a festival — we are signed to the same management, so his manager Paul Rosenberg was out there. Paul was helping me do stuff and helping him do stuff. There came a time when Paul was like sit down and meet Em. Eminem, to me, is like a bigger than life kind of dude. At this point, I was already like hammered drunk, so I probably embarrassed myself and said too much shit,” Brown confessed to Complex.
“But he just seemed like the coolest guy I ever met,” a relieved Brown shared. “I’ve met a lot of rappers, and I’ve met a lot of people, and I don’t know—he just felt normal to me. Maybe cause he’s from Detroit too, and there was a connection there—and that’s all we pretty much talked about was Detroit. I felt like, ‘Damn, this guy is fucking normal.’ I feel like I’m like that in some sense, too, I rap but don’t look at me like a rapper — I’m still a human being. I might have looked at him like he was this larger than life figure, but when I sat down and talked to him — I felt like I just got to know Marshall. He was a regular cool dude to me.”
It’s always refreshing to hear a time when ‘meeting your heroes’ didn’t go very wrong. Instead, Eminem only emboldened Brown’s view of him as a superhero to hip hop. But what is Brown’s favourite song from Eminem? While some have picked classic tracks, Brown shows his true fan colours by selecting a lesser-known song from the maestro, ‘Rain Man’ from Encore.
“‘Rain Man,'” notes Brown unequivocally. “I just remember hearing it for the first time and I was completely blown away. I never thought somebody could take it that far —the impersonations — he was just doing too much man. Anybody could just pick up a pen and write a rap but he was just doing too much, and that’s what I like. You know that was like his overtime — Eminem is somebody we obviously know who puts overkill into what he is doing, so I couldn’t imagine how long… I would actually like to know the story to that song — I’m pretty sure it took a long time to write. It’s very uncomfortable, that’s what I’m saying. Maybe just me and my dark sense of humour that I’m able to love it. I learned a lot from it actually.”
Listen below to Danny Brown’s favourite Eminem song of all time, ‘Rain Man’.
