I’m about to wave a white flag with Black Milk. After releasing Album of the Year, a record which was a great leap ahead in his career both as producer and emcee, I was looking forward to see where he was going to go from there. Since then, it’s been a several steps backward. Recently it was the extremely disappointing Random Axe album with Guilty Simpson and Sean Price, now it’s Black & Brown.

As was the case with Random Axe, the most surprising angle to the project is that it sounds like Black Milk’s passion left the recording sessions at a very early stage. There are moments where my ears perk up and I’ll remember that until very recently I considered him one of the most talented hip hop producers working today. However, with those few moments aside, most of the beats sound very generic and phoned in. Then either Brown will come the mic yelling the most ridiculous obscenities or the song will quickly come to a stop, or both. For a release with ten tracks to it, Black & Brown comes in at just over twenty two minutes. As short as that is, Brown wastes no time making sure that as much of that twenty two minutes is full of himself embarrassing himself on the mic, screaming (not rhyming, spitting, rapping, or any other way to imply that his delivery is pleasant) the most ridiculously sexist and obscene things imaginable. I mean, a song like “Zap,” features such wonderful lines such as “Danny Brown the Hybrid/pilot violet to the white kids/I’m psychic/knew these bitches suck my dick and she did/I’m violent/fist go in your mouth like a trident.” It’s so ridiculous, it makes me wonder if this album is a joke. Unfortunately, it’s a joke that isn’t very funny.

I don’t know what’s going on with Black Milk, but I hope he turns it around soon. I hate to see someone with so much talent waste all their time on half-assed EPs with emcees who are going to hold back his artistic growth. Black & Brown is without a doubt one of the lowest points of Black Milk’s career. I can only hope we see another high point soon.