Danger Mouse
By:
July 29, 2013
“Musically, there is no one who has the career I want. That’s why I have to use film directors as a model.” So says legendary performer and producer DANGER MOUSE (Brian Joseph Burton, born 1977). Not many artists who perform in a mouse costume get taken seriously, but from the moment he achieved international fame, it was clear that Danger Mouse wasn’t going to do things the conventional way. What catapulted him onto the world stage was The Grey Album, a creative blending of samples from the Beatles’ so-called White Album with Jay-Z’s The Black Album. Though other artists have seen their careers damaged by using other people’s music, times have changed since Grand Upright Music, Ltd v. Warner Bros. Records Inc.; Danger Mouse was celebrated by the mainstream media. Since then, he has worked across a wide range of genres, partnering with artists like MF DOOM, Beck, The Black Keys, Cee-Lo Green, Norah Jones, and Gorillaz. Mirroring Woody Allen’s unique-to-him approach to filmmaking, Danger Mouse is an auteur who just does what feels natural… and he knocks it out of the park every time.
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HIP HOP ON HILOBROW: HERC YOUR ENTHUSIASM series (25 posts about old-school hip hop) | DJ Kool Herc | Gil Scott-Heron | Slick Rick | Darryl “D.M.C.” McDaniels | Afrika Bambaataa | Biz Markie | U-God | Slug | Adam Yauch | Ghostface Killah | DJ Run | Flavor Flav | Scott La Rock | GZA | Schoolly D | Aesop Rock | Terminator X | Notorious B.I.G. | Melle Mel | Doug E. Fresh | Kool Keith | Rick Rubin | Rakim | Ol’ Dirty Bastard | Madlib | Talib Kweli | Danger Mouse | Kool Moe Dee | Chuck D | Dizzee Rascal | RZA | Cee-Lo Green | Best Ever Clean Hip Hop
On his or her birthday, HiLobrow irregularly pays tribute to one of our high-, low-, no-, or hilobrow heroes. Also born this date: Don Marquis, Theda Bara, Jean Baudrillard.
READ MORE about members of the Revivalist Generation (1974-82).