For the past year and a half, Brenton Brown has been having an affair. But now it's time to come clean. "Honestly, I'm excited," he says, obviously relieved. "I couldn't be more happy that it's actually out."
No, Brown hasn't broken any hearts. He's in love with a girl named music, and the offspring of this indiscretion is Affair, a bossin' 19-track mixtape that's full of flavorful flows, undeniable swag, and stay-in-your-head punch lines.
"As far as I'm concerned, you can be as ignorant as you want in a hook sometimes," Brown says. "But in terms of the lyrics, in terms of the actual verses, I have grown tired of the illiteracy and the kind of boring lyrics that have been coming out lately."
A bookish kid growing up, Brown recently graduated from college. But instead of pursuing a career behind a desk, he's determined to test his talents on the mike. He knows a lot of people doubt him. He has no label affiliation, and he certainly doesn't have endless sums of money. But B. Brown is just gonna keep grinding.
"That's really all I can do," he shrugs. "That's how I keep my head up, really by continually moving forward."
Now, after months of writing, recording, and tweaking, Affair has hit the blogosphere. It even earned a spot on hip-hop blog DatPiff's "Top 8 Free Mixtapes," something Brown is proud of having achieved without resorting to gimmicky tricks. His success can be attributed to hard work, dedication, and talent. And that makes him feel good, because if there's anything B. Brown doesn't like, it's a wack MC.
"At the end of the day, hip-hop has evolved from simple lyrics to almost needing storyboards," he says. "You want the punch lines to fly over heads. A dope MC has you really thinking about his lyrics."
Brown knows in his heart that he wants to be this kind of rhyme-slayer. "I'm trying to make sure that my music and this mixtape aren't one of those things that you can put on and then say, 'All right, cool,' and delete it from your playlist," he explains. "Even though it's 19 songs, it's 19 songs you can listen to forward, backwards, song-by-song, shuffle that shit. You're gonna love it."
