Danger Mouse: A Biography
Danger Mouse, the other half of Danger Doom, has had a career equally as colorful as MF Doom's, and arguably more success in the musical mainstream.
While a student at the University of Georgia, DJ Brian Burton had a show on the university radio station, where he introduced his fellow students to the records he was passionate about. Outside of the studio, he performed at DJ shows wearing a mouse outfit. He took the moniker Danger Mouse from a British cartoon.
Fittingly, Burton's next move was to Britain, where he signed with Lex Records and, in 2003, produced Ghetto Pop Life for the rapper Jemini. His breakout success, however, was The Grey Album, a completely illegal mashup of Jay-Z's vocals on The Black Album with instrumental versions of the Beatles' songs on The White Album. It became a much-downloaded hit on the Web, and today is considered a seminal entry in the mashup genre, which combines two or more disparate pop samples in order to create a new song.
Now in the big leagues, Danger Mouse was invited to produce the Gorillaz' album Demon Days, which got him a Grammy nomination for best producer. Though he didn't win that year, he would take home the Grammy in 2011, for his work on three albums: Broken Bells' Broken Bells, Sparklehorse's Dark Night of the Soul, and Brothers by the Black Keys.
It was in 2005 that he teamed up with enigmatic rapper MF Doom, and the cartoonish collaboration called Danger Doom was born. But The Mouse and the Mask, their debut album, had hardly hit stores before Danger Mouse was rushing off to embark on another collaboration -- this time with Goodie Mob crooner Cee-Lo Green.
The talented duo, calling themselves Gnarls Barkley, released their first album, St. Elsewhere, in 2006. They followed it with The Odd Couple in 2008. "Crazy," the chart-topping first single from St. Elsewhere that few listeners can get out of their heads after hearing it, was voted the best song of the decade by Rolling Stone.
Danger Mouse doesn't seem as if he will be leaving his perch at the top of the world's most sought-after producers anytime soon. Hopefully, another collaboration with MF Doom will be in the cards for him.
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