Punk Rap Prophet Denzel Curry Dreams Of A World Without Trolls

Denzel Curry is a hero to a large part of youthful America. He’s a star, a countercultural threat with an energetic, singular knife-like presence. Different music draws on different emotions, and Denzel draws from the full palette. But his signature rageful song is amongst the hardest music in the mainstream.

He has 2 million followers on Instagram, nearly 7 million monthly listeners on Spotify, and a footwear collaboration with Vans. The punk rap prophet recently completed a North American tour which shook the streets of Toronto, Miami, and New York City amongst others.

Jazz, R&B, rock and roll, hip-hop, dance, alternative, indie, and grunge run through the many memorable records in the long career of Denzel Curry. A rock-solid personal sense of identity is juxtaposed against characters like serial killers and space pirates. His Miami mind instills his music with Florida’s sunshine and grime alike.

He refrences and works with the legends from his beachfront hometown regularly. The South has something to say, a tradition to continue, and Denzel is the clearest Southern voice in Hip-hop. Amongst the chaos of the road, Denzel took ill and still took an interview, not wanting to cancel last minute.

“I take the same ideas that they teach in class and apply it to the music. ‘Cause in fighting, you got to be versatile, but you got to work. You got to go with what works,” Denzel Curry told a student journalist. He was sick as a guitar solo and three days from his New York City show. He was talking about Muay Thai.

“And you got to add more stuff to your toolbox. So, learning how to do music and learning how to fight, they go hand in hand,” he said.

“How is touring while you’re sick?” asked the student.

“It is extremely annoying that I got to be sick and do it. At the same time, it f*****g sucks ‘cause I’m stuffed, congested on the mic and whatnot,” he said. Then, they said that was enough, goodbye and Denzel hurried to his room to sleep. The elevator took what seemed like a fantastical length of time to arrive. And it came with a hello to its demeanor uncharacteristic of elevators. His hotel bed was made. And it served as the launching pad for a terrible, combustible, intermittent entry into dreaming.

It began with a fevered, sweaty illusion. Tossing in linens, Denzel saw a dinosaur’s ghost. He knew it was a ghost because it was a skeleton glowing with a hint of death’s only green. And he knew it was a dinosaur because their image is popular across media. He was half-awake, and hated the imagery, so he pushed past into sleep’s unknown in the creamy cold blue hotel room.

“You got to go, uh, do this press interview. You got to go talk to this person. You got to go do this. You got to go do this pop up. You got to go talk to these fans,” a voice said. It sounded like his own voice, but it was otherworldly and detached from anything. Everything is blessed with a hint of your sweetest and saddest signatures in dreaming.

A pencil thin man in a pinstripe suit sat down at a Miami public school desk, and asked Denzel a question. “What do you want?” he asked. Bob Dylan wrote a song about this man, Denzel knew. He was the kind of man Bob Dylan would write a song about.

“I just want to work behind the scenes more so than in front of the scenes ‘cause I know there’s going to be a limited time where I will be able to jump and shout and do all this sh**,” said Denzel. “Age, time gets everybody at some point.”

“I want to make comic books and movies and stuff like that. I want to do cartoons and stuff,” he said.

Where previously his dream was wide as the open ocean to a level man’s eye, it grew walls, and the suited man disappeared. On his way out, the man assured Denzel that he was sent as an agent of faith and fate. But it was a dream, so very little can be trusted.

The walls were half flesh and half forest, and Denzel recognized their textures from his latest binge, an anime, Jujutsu Kaisen.

Panda, a fighting robot panda from the show appeared and flexed his muscles like a bodybuilder in place, and Denzel examined the difference between a cartoon and his forearm’s skin and in his dreaming, Denzel saw none.

Panda wore small blue boxing gloves around his knuckles. Each carried a picture of the silhouettes of panda’s face. A panda on a panda, he thought. Denzel thought that was funny, and laughed, and the panda disappeared. And he was in a comic book. Walking between panels with stop motion like speed and careful attention to dialogue and onomonopia.

Alan Moore and Frank Miller, the legendary comic book creators, joined Denzel as a full page surprise spread, and with their entrance the paneling dissolved. Alan’s wavy grey-golden hair was pulled back in a ponytail and his beard shone like teeth. “Oh my god. I’m a massive fan,” said Denzel. “I’m an artist. I’m inspired by y’all. You two revolutionized comics.”

They thanked him with their smiles. And asked him if there were any villains in his life they should draw inspiration from. They desperately needed villains for a new idea for a heroine that was boiling their blood like youth. Denzel told them internet trolls.

“They’ll never say it in real life,” he said. “The internet is the best way for you to throw stones and hide your head.”

And the dream granted his desires, and a hundred trolls from the lost parts of his memory and his subconscious, were brought to dreamful life.

There were default twitter eggs tottering and shouting words of the worst combination of diction, syntax, and soul. Men with red hats and Oakley glasses barked obsinities like chihuahuas. And some fairytale trolls, two feet tall, angry as cornered rodents, and strong as marshmallows sprouted from the soil.

With knuckles and knees, Denzel cracked eggs. Oakley glasses shattered into dissolving clouds beneath his lightening wreathed fists. Whimpers rang out where hate previously rang.

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“Why do you think none of these kids show their faces on their profile picture,” said Denzel between making breakfast, cracking eggs. It was understood to be a rhetorical question by all around, Alan and Frank.

When Denzel’s energy exhausted and the trolls dimmed, Alan and Frank said goodbye and were replaced in dizzying, rotating motion by a walking star-white koi fish and her brother who was the sliding shades of surreal dusk. They took Denzel by the hand with their fins and materialized a Thai restaurant to surround the trio. Out the windows, Denzel saw the sweet sweeping blanket of naked space.

The starry koi ordered a slice of pear pie. It’s sister, the quieter koi, ordered a coffee with half and half, cream, oat milk, and sugar.

“You stay in LA,” said the koi brother. “How do you feel about it?”

“I like it until rappers start dying and sh**,” said Denzel. “It just makes me a little iffy about being in LA; you know? ‘Cause that could be anybody.”

“That could be any one of us being targeted. And the fact that I knew PnB Rock. I met him at X’s funeral. X died the same way, getting killed and getting robbed and killed,” said Denzel.

“XXXTentacion,” said the koi that looked like tomorrow’s infancy. “You may not be able to tell, Denzel. But my brother is making an incredibly sour, confused face for a fish. He’s a bit of a Philistine.”

“I’m so sorry,” said the bright white koi extending a fin across the table. It was covered in crumbs and wet but comforting.

“It just hit a nerve with me because it was like, damn, I met you at a funeral for somebody who died the exact same way,” said Denzel.

“And he was a good dude, so it was just crazy,” he said. “I rarely post on Instagram. And if I do it is when we’re out the city, not when we’re in the city. I don’t post on Instagram. I don’t share my location. I don’t do none of that sh**. I don’t like that.”

“It’s new to the human experience,” said the fish in nerving unison.

“It’s weird to have people after us all the time checking in. It’s a digital age,” said Denzel. “We’re entering a cyber-punkish age. All these kids are being raised a certain way and sh** like that, having no respect and whatnot; you know?”

“Do you want to have kids?” asked the fish in rising unison.

“Hell yeah,” said Denzel. “Yeah. I do want to have kids.”

“I read somewhere each child born is proof god hasn’t given up on us,” said the fish.

“You haven’t given up on us,” said the fish.

“These kids just want attention ‘cause they probably ain’t getting it from home. I don’t know. Yeah, that’s just my opinion,” said Denzel. Even without understanding the facial expressions of a Koi, he would have sworn they smiled when they departed into what fate waits for dreams.

In flurry of passion, Denzel’s conscious attention flew through memories of his favorite places on Earth: New Zealand, Japan, Thailand, Australia, Europe, and Fiji.

He saw people walking by with faces proudly flaunting pimples, scars, and collagen. Men shaved circles from their beards around problematic pores to show them off. Women wore paint around certain fingers to highlight hangnails, and children arranged glitter in the lines of their elder’s crow’s feet and smile lines alike in Autumn parks. Denzel closed his eyes.

When they opened, Denzel stood in a suit tailored from the night sky itself. He was addressing a room full of reporters. And the White House’s symbol stood behind him. “Mr. President,” said the dinosaur’s ghost, dressed as a reporter, brandishing a recording square, “how do you plan to address the crisis in –.” The reporter’s words muffled.

“When you start doing sh** and you get famous and whatever,” said Denzel. “Who you were before you got famous is going to be amplified. Once you get money, too. If you was in my position, you’ll see what’s up. I do my best to do the right thing and I’m not perfect.”

“It’s really easy to do the wrong thing. It’s really hard to do the right thing,” he said. And he woke up.

You can stream Denzel’s latest album Melt My Eyez See Your Future and a bevy of jazz remixes on its extended edition on all major streaming platforms. And you can watch his latest music video, “X-Wing,” here.