Danger Mouse and The Roots‘ Black Thought have shared the final preview of their long-awaited collaborative album ‘Cheat Codes’ ahead of the album’s release later this week.
‘Strangers’ features both A$AP Rocky and Run the Jewels, with a distinctively Danger Mouse beat foregrounding rapid-fire verses from Black Thought, Rocky, El-P and Killer Mike.
“We were honored to get down with our elite and legendary friends Danger Mouse, Black Thought and A$AP Rocky on this banger,” Run the Jewels said in a statement about the collaboration. Listen below:
‘Strangers’ is the fourth single to be released from ‘Cheat Codes’ ahead of its release on Friday (August 12). Danger Mouse and Black Thought announced the record in May with lead single ‘No Gold Teeth’. That was followed in June with the Joey Bada$$, Russ and Dylan Cartlidge collaboration ‘Because’ in June, and the Michael Kiwanuka-assisted ‘Aquamarine’ last month.
‘Cheat Codes’ will mark the first hip-hop album from Danger Mouse – real name Brian Burton – since ‘DANGERDOOM’, his 2005 collaboration with the late MF DOOM. Black Thought – real name Tariq Trotter – released the third volume in his solo trilogy ‘Streams of Thought’ in 2020. The Roots’ most recent album – their 11th – was 2014’s ‘…And Then You Shoot Your Cousin’.
The duo first began working on ‘Cheat Codes’ back in 2006, but the project remained largely in limbo until late 2017, when the pair picked up the recording process in Burton’s New York apartment.
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Speaking to NME earlier this month, the pair said they had established a rich working relationship with one another over time. “Over time we’ve become really efficient, we’ve learned the ways in which we’re able to best complement each other,” Trotter said.
Burton added: “You communicate better when you know you’re not gonna mess up the relationship, or that someone’s gonna get upset.”