Biggie and Kim. Nas and Kelis. Jay-Z and Beyoncé. Every generation of hip hop has its power couple, and last Thursday at Eclectic the recent boom of “Internet” rappers debuted its own. Glam rock fashionista and noted blunt smoker Danny Brown did a set with his maybe-jailbait girlfriend Kitty Pryde, and it was adorable.
Kitty Pryde is a suburban white girl rapper from Florida. I’m looking at the Internet right now; some websites are telling me she’s 19, others say 17. Danny Brown is definitely 31. Whatever. Whether you’re going by regular human standards of music or a rap fan’s expectations of “real hip hop,” she’s not very good, but the age thing and her “am I joking or not?” attitude have propelled her to that bewildering sphere of Internet celebrity shared by Lil B and Kreayshawn. Expectations for her set were pretty low, but because of the Adderall in her system, the loud bass, or some combination thereof, she managed to convey some energy and stage presence for the 20 minutes she was on. I think I recognized “Okay Cupid” and “Orion’s Belt,” and both were better without the sparkling pillows in her music videos.
Then Danny Brown came on and the house went insane. The jury is still out on whether Danny is the best rapper in the game, but there’s no question he’s one of the best live performers I’ve ever seen. Decked in full glam rock attire, he sauntered on stage and pounced around like a hungry velociraptor as he got the crowd hyped with recent singles like “Black Brad Pitt” and “Blueberry (Pills & Cocaine).”
But as catchy as the hook “I’m the black Brad Pitt/ I’m the black Brad Pitt” is, Wesleyan wasn’t there to watch Danny take a backseat to jittery grime tracks. We wanted him to rattle off sex punchlines so verbose that you forgive him for how disgusting they are. We wanted him to eat the fuzzy, stressed-out nightmare beats on XXX, the 2011 sophomore album that made him famous. We wanted to blushingly mouth along to lyrics like “Ate that b**** p**** till she squirted like a dolphin” and “Stank p**** smellin like Cool Ranch Doritos.” Hey, isn’t his relationship with Kitty Pryde kind of weird?
The show really started when he tore off his leather jacket and went deep into the aggressive first half of XXX, starting with buzzy jam “Lie4.” Predictably, Kitty Pryde took the stage to help him with the only track on XXX that could justifiably be called female-friendly: “I Will,” the new decade’s ode to cunnilingus. Kitty did his first verse, and oh my god, you guys. Watching them awkwardly fumble holding hands while she rapped, “Quit playing with me girl, and bring that over here/ And climb aboard my face, put that p**** on my beard” was one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen.
The show closed with Danny’s biggest hits, “Monopoly” and “Blunt After Blunt.” For the latter, Danny (now shirtless) had Kitty in a headlock that turned into a sweaty mosh headbang by the first chorus. As the set ended, he got the crowd to give her a big hand, and there were barely any boos. I wasn’t sure what I thought about this couple going in, but coming out I felt like I’d just watched a good romcom. Who are you to judge true love, dear reader?