Danger Doom
The Mouse and the Mask
Epitaph
Flip through the pages of cultural history, and you notice an interesting phenomenon. Every generation or two, half by accident
and half by inspired cultivation, an oasis of concentrated cool condenses, is celebrated and evaporates. Think of
CBGB in its heyday, or the
Algonquin Roundtable.
The Beats.
The vintage "SNL"
team. Def Jam records. The early years of
Lollapalooza. They were excellent for the sake
of being excellent, energized their respective scenes and became reference points for all that followed in their wake.
Their means, methods and manpower varied wildly. But all existed within chronological sweet spots after top-notch talent
had jumped into the mix, but before the big commercial interests had fully committed their corrosive tentacles to bottling and
selling the resulting product.
Can the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim bloc of cartoons lay claim to being this
kind of sacred creative ground?
They've combined some of the best comedy writers, cutting-edgiest stand-up comics, gleefully misappropriated retro
Hanna-Barbera characters and baditude-laden
interstitial "bumps" into a thick stew of late-night cool with its own cult following.
That's a solid start. But you don't reach the big leagues without getting good, getting better and then rolling the dice again.
That's exactly the sort of gamble Adult Swim took by bringing together a world-class DJ
(Danger Mouse), a veteran powerhouse of
off-brand hip hop (MF Doom a.k.a. Madvillain) and
a pastiche of their own cartoon characters' samples and original short bits.
They rolled a stone-cold seven.
Tied together by the formidable talent of MF ("Metal Face") Doom, The Mouse and The Mask is blessed with a verbal flow that's as compelling as it is cunningly sloppy. Danger Mouse knows how to create an intoxicatingly sweet trumpet or piano loop, and the album's jazz-inflected and soul-powered melodies are the perfect counterpoint to Doom's laconically brilliant lyrical chops.
While the album revolves around the Mouse and the Mask, the disc harnesses the power of its guest stars with a level of restraint and focus that other overproduced guest-studded rap productions could learn from. Cee-Lo's pitch and timbre are little too similar to Doom's, but his crisp delivery anchors "Benzie Box" like a brick, backed up by a ghostly pitchwheel and a whisper-sung chorus. Ghostface Killah pumps up "The Mask" with an ass-kickingly energetic spray of syllables that brings a well-timed bump to the album's laid-back vibe.
But the Best Guest Star statue goes to Talib Kweli, whose smoothly unpretentious performance on "Old School Rules" is nothing short of classic. More than any other MC on the disc, Talib Kweli modulates and inflects his delivery to suit his lyrical material, a nostalgic romp through the days when a rap album was sized up on its lyrical skills, dope beats and level of party
playability not its creator's violent street rep.
Powered by a horn loop and relentless snare drums, the nearly 3-minute track feels like 30 power-pumped seconds, simultaneously spinning through the roots of old-school East Coast rap and a cartoon-studded childhood:
And I might be buggin' but it seem to me/ That cartoons be realer than reality TV/ They inspire my decision to be open and listen/
But folks got it all twisted like a yoga position/ Like in order to spit it dope you gotta have a criminal past/ That's
similar to the cast of "Diff'rent
Strokes"
The album's Adult Swim samples and sketches are elegant and mercifully brief, serving as the CD's connective tissue without
overwhelming its hip-hop content. Those familiar with "The Brak Show," "Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law" and especially
"Aqua Teen Hunger Force" will dig on the references and samples, but the cartoon humor takes a backseat to the music, and meshes surprisingly well with Doom's signature style.
Whether The Mouse and the Mask marks the beginning of a glorious multimedia Adult Swim golden age or is merely the high-water mark of an
exquisitely talented crew beginning a pride-bloated descent into obscurity remains to be seen. What's indisputable is that MF
Doom, Danger Mouse and the Adult Swim crew have used deadly new-school talent to press a record with massive old-school appeal.
James Norton (jrnorton@flakmag.com)