Rapper Danny Brown was performing in Minneapolis on Friday when a fan pulled down his pants and attempted to perform oral sex on the 32-year-old Detroit native.
The incident went viral in the hip-hop community, an expected development given that Brown's fans are extremely active on social media. It's not uncommon for women (of all ages, including the sub-18 set) to tweet scandalous offers at him, and Brown often re-tweets these messages. One person who knows Brown very well, however, says the story is hardly as simple as it seems.
Kitty Pryde, Brown's opening act and an internet celebrity in her own right, has penned an open letter in which she describes the incident as "an actual sexual assault." The entire letter is worth a read, but the crux of Pryde's argument is that Brown was put in a position with no good options (caution: graphic language ahead):
"What is Danny supposed to do? The girl was at mouth-to-dick level already and to push her away, he would've had to either pushed her face or kicked her, and even the most gentle of either motion would immediately be labeled “abuse” by anyone watching. Guys pushing girls is not a good look when people are taking photos. So what was Danny supposed to do, other than back away, which he did? And if he had figured out a way to gently push the girl off him immediately without looking like he was smacking her in the face, he’s faced with attacks on his masculinity by every douchebro in the building. Yo dude, you don’t want your dick sucked, bro? Are you gay? Haha you’re gay you don’t want girls to suck your dick haha gay dude bro man swag! And that’s a rapper’s literal nightmare."
Pryde writes that she's "mad as hell" at both the fact that the woman in question felt it was a good idea to pull down Brown's pants in the middle of a performance and that Brown has been painted as a misogynist. Kendrick Lamar tweeted incredulously at Brown right after the incident, asking him it if it was true that he had received oral sex on stage. Brown responded in a since-deleted tweet that confirmed it and added that he "didn't miss one bar bruh bruh."
Though Pryde writes that the woman in question has been identified, she's outraged that no media outlets have interviewed her and instead assumed Brown either sought out the interaction or has no qualms about it. That Brown tweeted a boast at Lamar adds credence to the idea that he was pleased that it happened, but the fact that he deleted it points to a potential sense of shame. In what Pryde describes as a "Scout Finch" moment, she realizes that as a white woman, she can push away (or kick) anyone who comes at her aggressively, but that society wouldn't take kindly to Brown, a black man, shoving a white girl -- even in a situation like Friday's.
What happens now for Pryde and Brown? "We all sit in this van and play videogames and check our Twitter mentions and don’t speak at all of 'The Thing,' because it’s all we’re thinking about and it’s very lame."
