The Singles Jukebox

I know, I know, it’s serious…

[Video][Website]
[7.00]

Iain Mew: Brown sets it up with “feel like I’m going down in an elevator 90 miles an hour”. From there the snapping beat, insanely pulsating synth and his manic flow all do the work of carrying through on the promise. It’s about as far from comatose as you can get.
[8]

Alfred Soto: Going 808s and headache has done wonders for Brown’s concentration. The momentum stops only for a fagged-out chorus that means what it says.
[7]

Brad Shoup: Intake narration in the maelstrom: the only part I believe is the chorus. Synths strain towards the ceiling; Brown bears his symptoms like credentials. Someone needed to get him above the fracas.
[5]

Patrick St. Michel: Danny Brown manages to be both the best and worst possible speaker for the DARE program over the course of “Kush Coma.” The results of his blunt-to-blunt rotation sound terrifying, Brown hurtling down elevator shafts and his head sounding like a pyrotechnics display. It’s made all the more claustrophobic thanks to the beat, which constricts Brown’s words and forces him to rap even faster. Yet, despite being aware he’s “a slave to the sticky icky,” Brown doesn’t sound particularly eager to change his ways. Parts of his experience even sound kind of transcendent — dude feels like he’s walking on marshmallows and smelling roses. “Kush Coma” reduces the conflict of XXX into a just-over-three-minute-long song, and showcases everything great about Brown in that span. 
[9]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Danny Brown does not set out to make drug anthems –- he makes songs about drugs that turn out hooky despite their complete lack of vanity or glamour. He understands the toll the drugs are taking on his body even as they lift him to a slightly higher plane, seems unable to escape his guilt of being a drug dealer that could sell crack to pregnant women. There’s a constant tug-of-war between adrenaline and numbness in his work, heightened further by his voice constantly shifting between his emotive squawk and a guttural hardhead growl. While “Kush Coma” offers few surprises besides the vocal processing in the lacklustre chorus, it reminds us that Brown and constant collaborator SKYWLKR are in their own league when it comes to crafting ugly odes to being under the influence. Over panicky synth trills and battering-ram bass, Brown delivers another entry into this queasy canon, his world-weary sigh cutting through the kush haze and straight to the point: “Knowing goddamn well when the high go away/same shit gon’ be still in my way.”
[7]

Ramzi Awn: As far as spooked-out dorm-party synths go, DB doesn’t disappoint, and the chorus hooks like an old Pink Floyd track on dirtier acid.    
[7]

John Seroff: It took a few listens for this to sink in; the dissonance between Three Six Mafiaeque horrorcore hooks and quivering echo-chamber electronics made Brown’s manic energy hard to process comfortably. Plus how could something this twitchy be a weed high? Improvement occurred when I did what the song wanted: I stopped thinking and everything slowed down. Now I’m wondering if this could be the vanguard of a strain of tumblr rap that begins at the end of Kubrick’s 2001. Bright lights, dense sound, lost in a big white room, emerging as a Star-Child looking beatifically down on a world of smokers in mid-spasm. I dunno. I could probably do another hit.
[8]

Jonathan Bogart: The hyperactive jitter of the production, and Brown’s nimble skip through the verses, sounds more like amphetamines — or even just an old-fashioned sugar rush — than the titular cannabis strain. But then the chorus has got the boring pothead repetitiveness down pat.
[5]

Alex Ostroff: “Kush Coma” manages to simultaneously feel blissed-out and incredibly tightly-wound, which I suppose is Danny Brown’s thing generally, but it remains effective. The synths are gentle enough to keep me calm and jittery enough to keep me on edge. Danny’s manic flow emphasizes the beat’s more relaxing elements and the languid chorus draws out its vibrating instability. 
[7]