Album Review: Triumphant salvo of old-school hip hop from Danger Mouse & Black Thought

Cheat Codes has both veterans dipping into their early influences, and rifling their contact books to secure guest slots from the likes of Michael Kiwanuka and A$AP Rocky, as well as a poignant turn from the late MF Doom 

Danger Mouse and Black Thought: Cheat Codes.  

★★★★☆

Danger Mouse’s Brian Burton has clocked up a lot of miles since he broke through with 2004’s the Grey Album – an audacious mash-up of the Beatles’ White Album and Jay-Z’s Black Album that became a turn-of-the-millennium sensation (when mash-ups were the zeitgeist personified).

He has since then had a huge number one as half of Gnarls Barkley (their 2006 chart-topper song Crazy is still rattling around in our brains a decade plus later) and launched Broken Bells with James Mercer of the Shins.

Burton also collaborated with U2 on 2014’s Songs of Innocence – co-producing seven of its 11 (largely underwhelming) tracks. That’s quite a journey for a former telecommunications student who grew up in suburban Georgia and briefly worked as a barman in London (before the Grey Album brought him to the attention of Damon Albarn, who asked Danger Mouse to produce the second Gorillaz album, Demon Days).

He goes back to his musical first love of hip hop on his Cheat Codes, a get together with 50-year-old cult Philadelphia rapper Black Thought – real name Tarik Luqmaan Trotter and co-founder with Questlove of The Roots.

The project is a scintillating meeting of minds and cross-pollination of sensibilities. Burton and Trotter set out their agenda on single No Gold Teeth, bouncing break-beats popping off against Black Thought’s luxuriant rapping.

The vibe throughout is 1990s hip hop, sprinkled with droll wordplay. “I’m like Thelonious at the underground piano,” rhymes Trotter on The Darkest Part. “Dressed in camo, the grenades, guns and ammo.”

 The pair have delved into their contacts book too. Aquamarine features Michael Kiwanuka, the British singer who tapped Burton to produce his 2020 Mercury-winner Kiwanuka. The all-star trio of A$AP Rocky and Killer Mike and El-P of Run The Jewels meanwhile pile in on the driving Strangers.

Most poignantly of all, Belize has a spot by MF Doom, the rapper who passed away two years ago. It is the bittersweet cherry atop a triumphant salvo of old-school hip hop that feels as fresh and vital as anything you will hear in 2022.