This is a comeback story: a former "junkie, alcoholic" who lost control, now recovered and reborn, embracing the bliss and identity-making potential of music like never before. It's a classic hip-hop underdog narrative, and this is very much a rap album, just adorned with a Splice pack's worth of pixie-lated dust. Rave music is often associated with druggy abandon, but for Brown it seems more about the heady rush of joy conjured by whizzing tempos and neon synths.
I've spent my life determined to be one of a kind perhaps because I'm a twin. During our birth, my younger-by-two-minutes brother's umbilical cord wrapped around my neck. It cut off my air supply, which left me deaf, while his hearing was unimpaired. That's sibling rivalry for you. I use hearing aids and am a strong lip reader, as well as being fluent in British Sign Language. When I take my aids out to sleep,