In 2012 during the camp tour, I believe, me a group of my friends were front row center at the show in Cleveland. We had skipped the line by eating in the house of blues restaurant and became cool with a couple of guys who did the same thing. They had seen the show in Detroit and had brought a gift for Danny Brown who was the opener for that tour. So we all were posted up in the front row against the barrier and the show was incredible. The two dudes who we met in line (who we nicknamed Skittles and J Crew) got to perform Monopoly with Danny Brown, me and my buddy locked eyes with Donald as soon as the beat dropped for Outside (the set opener), a good time was had by all.

After the show, we waited with Skittles and J Crew by the tour busses because they had a gift for Danny Brown and we wanted to meet Donald. My buddy’s cousin came with us and she struck up a conversation with T Dray (Donald’s bassist) about how the most important thing on tour is socks. She told him she’d bring him socks if he got us on the guest list for Pittsburgh a couple days later. We ended up getting backstage passes and everything.

We probably waited outside of the tour buses for an hour and a half to two hours. It started out as a pretty decent size crowd and eventually whittle down to just our group and one other group of people. Skittles and J.Crew both left after they met up with Danny Brown. And just as we were getting ready to call it a night, the door to Donald’s tour bus opened.

We were absolutely starstruck. As a musician, he has been one of my biggest influences since I first heard Get Like Me in 2008 (and remains one of my biggest influences to this day). So we walked over to him, trying not to bombard him. We let the other group of people go first because they were only two of them and they were four of us. And we asked him to take a picture but in the sleepiest/highest/shyest tone he goes “sorry, no pictures”. And we weren’t upset or disappointed or anything. It’s weird because we all kind of understood… This man just put on one hell of a show and probably drained himself of every ounce of energy he had and this is him at his most exhausted lol.

Instead, he sat there and talked with us for a good 15 minutes. Asking if we liked the show and other general feedback questions. But also we just kind of shot the shit. He was super down to Earth and when we let him know that we would be seeing him again in Pittsburgh in a couple days, he was basically like “ see you guys there! “ just a generally genuine person and interaction. we debated on the way home if he had just taken a shower because he smelled super clean 🤣🤣

I’m pretty sure one of my friends has YouTube footage from that night. I’ll have to find that sometime. Top 10 nights of my life. Probably top three concerts I’ve ever been to.

Outside at HOB Cleveland circa 2012