Danny Brown is hard at work on his fourth studio album – but he’s also grinding away at another, more unusual, project: a Dr. Seuss-inspired children’s book written for his 13-year-old daughter. “It’s really about self-esteem in black girls,” the rapper told radio station Triple J during his Australian tour. “You know how black women do so much – process their hair, change their eye color? It’s really about a little girl who does all these things to herself and changes herself, and she realizes she’s just better off the way she is.”

Brown says the book is “taking [him] forever to finish,” but he’s focused on making it “real Dr. Seuss-y.”

“I don’t know how Dr. Seuss did it,” he said. “I don’t know how he wrote The Grinch and Green Eggs And Ham and One Fish, Two Fish – what was going on in that guy’s brain to be able to write those things?”

Asked how the whimsical Seuss style would have translated into hip-hop, Brown gave a clever response: “I think I am Dr. Seuss! I’m the Grinch. I’m all his characters come to life in rap music.”

Alongside discussions of chipmunks and losing iPhones, the rapper also offered a brief update on his next album. “[I’m] pretty much just working with the same producers I work with, Paul White and SKYWLKR,” he said. “I went to L.A. and worked with the Alchemist for like a week – I think I have one that’s going to stick on the album.”

Brown said he’s aiming to top his previous work, and that the process has been meticulous. “I listen to [2013’s] Old and it’s like, ‘I don’t know how I’m gonna beat this one,'” he continued. “I’m really, really trying my hardest to just make the best possible music I can make for the people.”