Danny!: Biography

• Overview
• Discography
• Biography
• Related Artists

• Little Brother
• Kanye West
• MF Doom
• 88-Keys
• The Pharcyde
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• Erick Sermon
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• Talib Kweli
• Common

Birth Name:

Daniel Keith Swain

Born:

Aug 18, 1983 in Killeen, TX

Genres:

Rap & Hip-Hop Music, Underground Rap Music

Decades Active:

2000's

While South Carolina producer/MC Danny declares himself "A Tribe Called Quest on acid, or EPMD on LSD", he's much more complex than that. Born to military parents in the summer of 1983, Danny Swain never had enough time to grow roots in any particular area. With his family crisscrossing the country, the scenery was always changing and so were Danny's friends. The only longterm relationship he was able to maintain was the one he had with music. His Mother supported her son's interests, buying him music equipment every Christmas. By 1998 he was a serious beatmaker and writing rhymes became his next conquest. By 2002 he was ready for his debut and began work on "The Danny Swain LP", but the album would never see the light of day. Accused of being the ringleader in a gradechanging scandal at his college, Danny was expelled from Claflin University and by the end of the year he was back home, dejected, depressed, and quitting music. Two years later, he had a change of heart and reappeared onto the local scene with his first fulllength, The College KickedOut. While some saw it as a winning combination of Little Brother and Kanye West, others saw it as derivative of both. Danny relocated to Georgia for a second chance at higher education at the Savannah College of Art Design and worked on his second effort, the venomous F.O.O.D. (Finding Out Our Destination. Whether or not the KickedOut criticism was the reason for the anger, F.O.O.D. proved Danny was an unique rapper who wore his emotions on his sleeve, soulsearching through layers of feelings and taking the listener along for the ride. Although F.O.O.D. went unnoticed by most, Danny began working on his most ambitious project yet, a concept album. Semiautobiographical, Charm found Danny narrating the story of an upandcoming rapper who looks to fame as a way to escape dismal reality. The album was an excellent combination of his loopy, fascinating productions and his wry, poignant lyric writing, but it was also his alleged swan song. Even though his star appeared to be rising, the unpredictable Danny announced Charm was his farewell to the game just as the album was being released in late 2005.

- David Jeffries, All Music Guide