On Gnarls Barkley, Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo

[iamom]

Danger Mouse is the handle for Brian Burton, who is a 28 year-old music producer that until recently wasn't too well-known amongst the general public, but who has recently been breaking hardcore into the mainstream with some great albums. He's originally a purveyor of hip-hop etc. but his music is actually more difficult than that to classify. It crosses over into a few funk and hip-hop-related genres, and all of it is very good. At the moment, he's probably most notorious for his illegal underground mashup of an acapella version of Jay-Z's The Black Album (amazon.com | amazon.ca) and samples from The Beatles' White Album (amazon.com | amazon.ca) known as The Grey Album which is unavailable in any store but which has proliferated widely throughout the net. I have a copy if anyone wants it -- let me know by commenting on this post.

At any rate, Danger Mouse is a sort of reclusive dude who's not widely photographed and whose given name, Brian Burton, was not even very well known until recently except by aficionados. And writer Chuck Klosterman wrote a great in-depth piece recently about Burton and his collaborator and soul singer extraordinaire Cee-Lo (formerly of rap group Goodie Mob), which I wanted to shout out to anyone here who is interested.

Danger Mouse (Brian Burton) as The Pink Panther	Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo (Thomas Calloway) as The Pink Panther and Inspector Clouseau

Read The New York Times Article The D.J. Auteur, or download the fantastic pop track "Crazy" from the Gnarls Barkley album St. Elsewhere (amazon.com | amazon.ca).