Danny Brown — Copycats ft. Underscores

JUL 01 2025 · 12:00

Danny Brown — Copycats ft. Underscores (2025) Director: Rollo Jackson Era: Hyperpop Crossover Era (2025) - Veteran Detroit rapper Danny Brown pivots into experimental hyperpop/deconstructed club territory on the Warp Records album 'Stardust', collaborating with next-gen internet-native artists. High curatorial value as a documented cultural artifact of the 2025 hyperpop-rap crossover moment, capturing Danny Brown's most genre-divergent career pivot. The video is a confirmed Rollo Jackson / Somesuch production with strong cross-genre press coverage (DIY, Stereogum, The Needle Drop, Uproxx, FLOOD), and represents a meaningful node connecting UK-rooted music video craft (Jackson, Somesuch) with American underground rap and global hyperpop aesthetics. Context: Released October 2025, 'Copycats' arrives as the second single from Danny Brown's album 'Stardust' (Warp Records, November 7, 2025) — his first album recorded entirely sober. The track represents a deliberate generational handshake: a Detroit hip-hop veteran with a career stretching back to 2011's XXX diving headlong into the hyperpop and deconstructed club sounds championed by underscores, a San Francisco producer who has collaborated with Oklou and Yaeji. Critics compared its energy to the Vince Staples / SOPHIE collaboration on 'Big Fish Theory'. The video's limo-party rockstar concept literalizes the song's core theme of celebrity aspiration and imitation, shot in Brooklyn and produced by prestige music video house Somesuch. Director notes: The video for 'Copycats' was directed by Rollo Jackson and produced by Somesuch. It was shot in Brooklyn, New York, primarily inside a limousine. Per Northern Transmissions and DIY Magazine (October 28, 2025), the concept involves Danny Brown and underscores seeking the calm of a private limo, only to be surrounded by fans and party energy. Jackson reunited with Danny Brown for this video, having previously directed his 2013 video 'Dip'. The video released on October 28, 2025, twelve days after the single dropped on October 16, 2025.