Danny Vintage

**Daniel McAnnister** (born February 11, 1999), known professionally as **Danny Vintage** (or simply **DV**), is a Canadian and American rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer. He rose to prominence after the release of his mixtape *Rhythm & Poetry* in August 2019, which debuted at number 11 on the Billboard 200 chart.

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McAnnister was nominated for Best New Artist at the 2022 Grammy Awards and he has won one American Music Award the same year. He has released three studio albums, *Luv Is Luv* (2021), *Saturn Rings* (2022) *and X-Ray* (2023), aswell as two top 15 singles, "Love Everyone" together with South Korean boygroup BTS and "One Of Us" with fellow rapper Playboi Carti. These songs charted at number 15 and 12 respectively.
He also won the fifteenth season of American Idol. In the final he performed the song "TBD" by fellow rapper and singer G-RAFFE, who also acted as a judge the same season.

## Early life and education

Daniel McAnnister was born in Kennebunkport, Maine, a town on the east coast of Maine on February 11, 1999. He and his parents moved to Canada when he was only 10 months old. McAnnister grew up bilingual and had to learn English and French all throughout his childhood. His mother became hooked on drugs when he was seven years old and his father worked as a truck driver so he always had to care for himself when he was younger.  When he was 13 years old, he discovered Twitter on his dad's phone and downloaded it on his own phone. He created a fan account for female rapper Nicki Minaj and had "not much success but I knew how to utilise social media for my own good," He came out as gay to his parents when he was 15 years old, but he said that "I don't think they know, because they never listened to me anyways." He started playing some instruments in music class and his music teacher noted that "he was always good when it came to instruments." He has since claimed that he can play "almost every instrument."

He graduated from Alexander Galt Regional High School in 2017 and then enrolled at Athabasca University after moving to Los Angeles on his own in hopes to pursue a music career. He graduated with a Bachelor's degree of General Studies in 2022. During this time he had to live off "6 or 700 dollars a month that I made at my jobs at McDonalds and Subway before my music career started finally taking off in 2019" but he said that it was the best decision he ever made.

## Career

### 2013-2018: Life as an internet personality and early work

McAnnister said that he never did anything for school because he was "good enough anyways and I rather focused on trying to become a musician." He said that he had a twitter account called @nickiromanreloaded. He also stated that he was acknowledged by Nicki once, but the account only had about 12.000 followers at the end of its lifetime.

In 2015 he released his first his first EP with the title *Future Superstar.* He released his first mixtape, *Vintage* (2015) only a few months later. This mixtape eventually peaked at number 190 on the Billboard 200. This title was also the inspiration for his stage name, as he went by the name *Danny Rose* before that. He released his second mixtape, *No Boundaries* (2017) and his second EP, *Wigga 3* (2017) in February and June, respectively. Vintage released his third mixtape, *Break Yo Heart* in 2018. In this project he also officially came out to his fans.

### 2019-2021: Breaktrough and Luv Is Luv

*Main article: Luv Is Luv*

His breaktrough mixtape, *Rhythm & Poetry* came out in August of 2019. It debuted at number 11 on the Billboard 200 chart. So did its follow up, *Ship On The Lean Sea* (2020). McAnnister released his first studio album, *Luv Is Luv* on August 13, 2021. It was met with fairly positive reviews upon release and was praised for its overall boldness. The album sold over 133.000 copies first week and was accompanied by the singles Luv Is Luv, Australia, Success, Cal and Yung Slyme Lyfe. The song "Cal" peaked at number 48 on the Billboard Hot 100, the highest from the album. The album was later certified Platinum by the RIAA on October 29, 2022.

### 2022-present: Saturn Rings, X-Ray, Coachella performance and upcoming fourth studio album

*Main articles: Saturn Rings and X-Ray*

The first single for his second studio album was a collaboration with him and South Korean boyband BTS. The song was released on January 7, 2022 and it peaked at number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100. His second studio album, *Saturn Rings* was released on July 22, 2022. The album sold 126.000 copies first week and debuted at number three on the Billboard 200, making it his second top 3 album. The album received similar ratings by critics, compared to *Luv Is Luv*.

On December 15, 2022 Danny Vintage announced that his next album, *X-Ray* would be coming "sooner or later". The first single came out on January 28, 2023 and featured a very different soundscape. The single peaked at number 90 on the Billboard Hot 100. *X-Ray* came out on February 11, 2023 and it debuted at number 47 on the Billboard 200. The album was hugely inspired by the soundscapes of Tyler, the Creator's Cherry Bomb and Kanye West's Yeezus. The project was highly praised by critics, saying that it could "initiate a new wave of hip hop music like Kanye West did with his debut album."

In January it was announced that he is performing at Coachella. In September of 2023 he said that his new album would is "almost finished" and that it is once again different from everything he did previously, suggesting a more mainstream approach. Later, he announced that his next album would simply be called *DV* and that it is a more personal album and that he would be taking "a little break" after that.

## Musical style and influences

Danny Vintage's style has been described as "a bit of everything, but mostly hip hop". He has also experimented with a more rocky sound and a bit of R&B.

He credits G-RAFFE, Kanye West, Frank Ocean, Tyler, The Creator, Chance The Rapper and Nicki MInaj as his main influences and he said that he grew up to a lot of heavy metal and rock music, but he always despised it and he went to a record store to buy Kanye West's album Yeezus to play in secret and he has "fallen in love with it instantly.

He aslo posesses a very high vocal range, from F1 to C6, which consists of over five cotaves. He is also a multi-instrumentalist and he can play most instruments "without effort."

## Personal life

Vintage is a polyglot, as he speaks four languages fluently. These languages are English, French, Spanish and German. He has also stated that he is trying to learn Italian and Japanese, but he "isn't far" in his journey to learn those languages. He has learned those languages (German and Spanish) whiile being enrolled at University and he has released a few non-english songs already.

He has voted for independent presidental nominee Kanye West in the 2020 presidential election, but he has since distanced himself from it since West's antisemetic statements.

### Health and assets

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McAnnister owns a white 2005 Cirrus SR22 G2 GTS which he bought for just under 500.000$ in 2022. This airplane is seen in the music video for the song "Kill Ya", which is featuring Lil Uzi Vert and NBA YoungBoy. With the plane he fulfilled a "lifelong dream" of his.

He also owns a 700.000$ property in Madawaska, the northernmost town in Maine, which he bought in July 2022 for nearly 450.000$. Aswell as a hosue worth 289.000$ in Sherbrooke, Québec. Despite this, he is only in those houses during the winter and he spends most of his time in rented flats and hotels.

Danny Vintage has multiple tattoos, most of them are random symbols, but he also has tattoos of his "favorite cities" San Francisco and Québec. McAnnister has described himself as "addicted" to getting tattoos and he said that he gets a new one atleast every two months. In 2019, McAnnister was diagnosed Borderline personality disorder. He has said himself that it is only a "light version" because it happens pretty rarely and if something happens he's able to control it well. In February 2022, he has contracted COVID-19, shortly after playing a concert in San José.

### Religion

Vintage has mentioned multiple times that he was born into Judaism, but he never practiced it on a regular basis. In an interview he said that when he was a teenager he would sometimes pray "for all of this to end" (talking about his relationship with his parents), but he eventually stopped after nothing happened. He also sometimes uses his faith to his advantage to say dark jokes against jews and get away with antisemitism.

## Controversies

McAnnister had a few controversies spanning his nearly 10 year career as a musical artist.

His first controversy came in 2017 when he said the N-Word on his song "Grail" from his first mixtape *No Boundaries*. He has later apologized for this but later released the EP "*Wigga 3*", in which he seemed to mock the situation. This EP was later removed from streaming services in late 2020. He put out a statement saying "I'm sorryy If I hurt anybody, won't happen again."

On his second mixtape, *Break Yo Heart* (2018), on the song "Diskrimi Nation" he said that "MLK is overrated" and "he did nothing special, but you don't wanna hear that from me". These lines were removed several weeks later after he apologized saying "I didn't think about it properly, I'm sorry."

In 2020 during the George Floyd protests, he assaulted a police officer after he said that "Faggots shouldn't have a place in society." The officer took it to court and it was later ruled in favor of McAnnister and the police officer lost his job. Several months later, after walking down the street, both of them met again and Vintage gave him a blue eye, but the police officer apologized for his actions, and so did McAnnister. He has since said that "it was a then-thing, I don't even know where he is right now, I hope he is doing great." Seemingly burying the hatchet.

## Discography

*Main articles: Danny Vintage albums discography, Danny Vintage singles discography and Danny Vintage production discography*

**Studio albums**

* *Luv Is Luv* (2021)
* *Saturn Rings* (2022)
* *X-Ray* (2023)

* *DV* (2023)

**Collaborative albums**

* *RD PLL PLNT* (with Red Pill Planet) (2023)