Payback (album)

Payback
Studio album by Danny!
Released	September 24, 2012 September 25, 2012 October 9, 2012
Genre	Hip hop
Length	79:51
Label	Okayplayer Records
Producer	Danny!
Danny! chronology
Where Is Danny? (2011) Payback (2012)

Payback is rapper/producer Danny!'s seventh studio album, originally scheduled for a January 17 domestic release. Nicknamed "Project Lucky Seven" during its inception, Payback was recorded primarily during the summer of 2011 shortly after Where Is Danny?'s re-release via Interscope Records.^[1] After a quiet exodus from the label Danny! subsequently signed to a rebooted Okayplayer Records, which had been on hiatus since 2004; a release date was finally slated for September 25.^[2] Payback was notable not only for establishing Danny! into the mainstream—propelled by a promotional appearance on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon alongside The Roots the week prior to the record's release^[3]—but also for boasting an eclectic roster of featured artists; actress Amber Tamblyn, for example, makes a surprise cameo appearance during the epilogue of "Evil".

Overview

Background

Narrated by longtime mentor Joi Gilliam, Payback concludes the trilogy of concept albums first announced during late 2005; like Charm and And I Love H.E.R. before it, the album's content serves as an extended metaphor for the current state of Danny!'s music career. In this case, the storyline of a criminal awaiting trial for breaking various laws in the name of survival parallels the politics surrounding the creation and development of Payback, practices in which Danny! has referred to as his revenge, or "payback", on a fickle and dysfunctional music industry.^[4]

Payback's production was helmed entirely by Danny! (like all of the previous entries in his discography) and would later be revamped for its official release, encompassing elements and nuances throughout the record as homage to Timbaland and Missy Elliott collaborations from the late 1990s. For example, the drum pattern from "Go That-A-Way" emulates that which can be heard on Elliott's 1997 single "Beep Me 911", while the chirping cricket, drum programming and even ad-libs from Elliott herself from Aaliyah's "One In A Million" appear on "Far Away".

The cover art depicts downtown Tokyo moments before an unspecified catastrophe.

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[5]
Consequence of Sound	[6]
DJ Booth	[7]
HipHopDX	[8]
No Ripcord	[9]
Popmatters	[10]
RapReviews	[11]
Rolling Stone	[12]
Slant Magazine	[13]
SPIN	[14]

Payback initially received mostly favorable reviews after being delivered to the press at the top of 2012, ultimately earning a 76% rating from review aggregator Metacritic^[15] leading up to its eventual fall release. Noting the album's scarcity and constant delays at the time, Popmatters praised Danny!'s candor as well as the cultural references scattered throughout the album, wondering "how much of the album’s more subversive elements could slip between the cracks at a time when the market behaves as though there’s simply no time or need for inspective ears".^[16]

The production on the album was unanimously acclaimed by critics; Slant Magazine deemed the beats "undeniably savvy".^[17] Sites such as AllMusic and DJ Booth lauded Danny!'s emotional purging throughout the record, with both likening Payback to an on-wax "catharsis", while others such as Rolling Stone and No Ripcord chided him for the very same thing, calling Danny! "angry"^[18] on an album "[full] of gripes".^[19] Danny! would later debunk the latter sentiments on his Tumblr blog track by track, dismissing the presentation of such notions as "lazy"^[20] on the writers' part while countering that the album's few emotional aspects were similar to, and influenced by, that of The Marshall Mathers LP.

Track listing

References