Last night, ABC premiered Fresh Off the Boat, a new family-oriented sitcom based on the early life, exploits, and homonymous memoir of Eddie Huang, the Taiwanese-Chinese-American chef of VICE-show fame. While the show may be experiencing a decidedly mixed reception, at least one person involved in its production has to be happy with the result. Danny Brown, the Detroit-based, dip-spitting rapper, recorded the show’s theme song, which was released in full by Noisey this morning.
Of the song, Noisey writes, in part: “It’s a little over a minute long, and features Brown’s signature flow—a flow that’s akin to throwing an aux cord in a blender, which then causes a fire in the kitchen, which then causes a building to burn down. Is this the greatest theme song since Cheers? Probably.”
The new sitcom, for which Brown performed the theme song, chronicles the early life of Eddie Huang, who owns Baohaus on New York City’s Lower East Side and has done extensive work with VICE, including hosting multiple web series for the media company. These include “Munchies,” “Huang’s World,” and “Fresh Off the Boat.” Huang has written publicly about his complicated emotional response to having his life story and memoir made into a television sitcom. In a recent piece for New York magazine’s pop-culture outlet, Vulture, Huang claims: “I used to try to understand my existence underneath the Bamboo Ceiling, but with no way out through the master’s house, I laced up my Timb boots, initiated Chinkstronaut mode, and escaped the gravitational pull of society.”
While Huang deals with a socioemotional quagmire in the form of his new TV series, Danny Brown has been busy of late with artistic endeavors on multiple fronts. The rapper recently announced that he is authoring a children’s book “inspired by Dr. Seuss.” The book will be about “self-esteem in black girls.” Last year saw Brown collaborate with artists such as Action Bronson, Phantogram, BeatKing, RiFF RAFF (who, himself, is on the verge of becoming a professional wrestler), and Purity Ring’s Megan James. According to Pitchfork, “Brown also told [Australian radio station] Triple J he’s been recording with regular collaborators Paul White and SKYWLKR, and that he recently worked with the Alchemist in Los Angeles for a week. He also purchased a house in rural Michigan with its own studio. And he’s signed with an agency for voiceover work.”