Danger Mouse

b. Brian Burton, 29 July 1977, White Plains, New York, USA. The release of Danger Mouse and Jemini's 2003 debut, Ghetto Pop Life, prompted the curious sight of a US hip-hop producer posing in a rodent costume alongside his sidekick. Presumably taking his name from the UK cartoon secret agent mouse, Danger Mouse established a reputation as a producer of "bastard pop hip-hop" via a series of bootleg EPs made while at college in Athens, Georgia, USA. These law-eschewing releases juxtaposed a cappella vocals from Nas and Xzibit with tracks by luminaries such as Radiohead and Portishead. His debut album drew explicit influence from the music of Portishead's atmospheric trip-hop, sometime De La Soul producer Prince Paul and Isaac Hayes, as well as the film scores of Ennio Morricone and Lalo Schifrin. Recorded in London, Atlanta and Los Angeles, Danger Mouse's debut album was originally envisaged as a solo release with guest MCs but, although it featured cameos from Tha Liks, the Pharcyde, J-Zone and Prince Po (aka Prince Poetry, one half of Organized Konfusion), rapidly mutated into a full collaboration with Jemini (aka Jemini The Gifted One and the Funk Soul Sensation). As well as including Jemini's boasts about his own (sexual and lyrical) prowess, the album featured chicken noises, Britney Spears references, and a vitriolic attack on US president George W. Bush. Ghetto Pop Life was released via Warp Records' hip-hop subsidiary Lex, and "Take Care Of Business" notably featured a sample of Warp act Broadcast.

For his next project, Burton completed a cheeky "mash-up' of Jay-Z's The Black Album and the Beatles' The White Album. Taking just the vocal track from the Jay-Z recording, Burton set it to music sampled from the Beatles" famous 1968 double album. Releasing the result (The Grey Album) via his website in December 2003, Burton caused an immediate legal furore and was quickly forced to stop distributing the album after a cease-and-desist order was issued by EMI Records on behalf of the Beatles. In 2005 Burton produced the Gorillaz's award-winning Demon Days and collaborated with MF Doom on the DangerDoom project The Mouse And The Mask. The following year he collaborated with rapper/vocalist Cee-Lo as Gnarls Barkley. The duo's first single, "Crazy", made UK recording history when, in April, it became the first single to top the UK charts on download sales only.

Over the next three years, in addition to further work with Cee-Lo in Gnarls Barkley, Burton demonstrated his capabilities as a producer by overseeing excellent albums by The Good, The Bad And The Queen, the Shortwave Set, the Black Keys, and Martina Topley-Bird.