Detroit rapper Danny Brown caused a stir while on tour in Australia yesterday (May 1) after his refusal to credit a photographer’s image of him turned into him getting ready to catch the fade with a guy who called him out for it, Music Feeds reports.
It all started when photographer Michelle Grace Hunder shared a shot of Brown on Twitter — the cover image of this story — that she’d taken at his Melbourne gig. The rapper posted it to his 259,000 followers on Instagram, only without a photo credit. Lauren Ziegler, the editor of the Howl & Echoes site Hunder was shooting for, sent Brown a quick DM asking if he could credit the photographer.
Instead, he accused her of being “butt hurt” and deleted the image from his feed.
Subsequently, she is no longer a fan.
Here’s the conversation, shared on Twitter by Nic Kelly, another Australian media/music guy.
Later, Danny ranted some more about the issue on Twitter, even getting some support from U.K. grime artist Skepta.
Kelly called him out again and Brown responded, with things escalating between the two to the point that Brown was giving out his hotel address and lacing up his figurative gloves for a fade with the 20-year-old. Brown’s side of the beef has already been deleted from his Twitter account, but Kelly shared the screenshots on his own feed.
In the end, there seem to be two lessons here:
1) Artists, credit your photographers, and 2) Danny Brown don’t give a fuuuuuuuuuuck.
This junkie ain’t winning no fair one
Perfect case of someone changing and getting big headed.
Years ago dude was amazingly humble, grateful, and pleasant.
Photo crews are photo creds. Danny knows it, I guarantee you he knows it just didn’t like getting checked by someone about it.
Cut your nose to spite your face Danny… you are cutting your nose to spite your face. Get sober bro your catalog isn’t deep enough for you to be treating people like this.
I don’t know why a man has to credit someone for taking a photo of himself….that is crazy, I don’t care what the rules about this are, if you take a picture of me, I can post it where ever I want to and don’t need your permission, you don’t like it don’t shoot me!!! Im not asking for permission to use something that is about me!!! Sorry
I don’t know much about the politics, but I think it would benefit both parties. For instance, the celebrity immortalized especially if the shot is captured perfectly, and of course job opportunities or resume status for the photographer. Danny Brown is entitled though not to give credit, but why not if you’re captured in an iconic manner? And it’s not like one has to pay the photographer, right? Just acknowledge them making you look effn epic. Just my thoughts.
Aye dont get mad at Danny Brown, rappers just busy recording in studios then travelling all around the world so people can hear their music live, sometimes they even produce the beats themselves. So its easy for them to forget that picking the right angle and taking a photo is somewhy and somehow an artform too, helluva work has been put in that picture. Asking a nigga who autographs those to mention your lameass lol. Photographers seem to take their shit too serious.
shit..might pop down to the mantra. few mins walk away haha
Danny hasn’t dropped shit since late 2013, when Old came out. That has nothing to do with this irrelevant story. Funny title though, kinda disrespectful lol. Both parties could have acted more rationally.
Just read about this ridiculous story for the first time now, and I don’t blame Danny Brown for his response one bit. The DM sent to him was written with a very arrogant (“so glad you love our photos”), snotty (“just as you would”), and condescending (“it’s only fair to”) tone, and really lacked in terms of awareness (if you want to mention something annoying to hip-hop artists to have to consider, clearing samples is an obvious one to go to) and courtesy (how about start the message with “hey, great performance, loved the show”). Add to it that this dude’s on a world tour, probably exhausted and maybe still faded from the night before, and is Danny Brown, and these clowns were expecting to receive some proper business etiquette reply? Anyone who’s not a cornball would be ecstatic to get a Danny Brown-esque reply from the man himself.