August 16, 2022
Exclusive – Black Thought and Danger Mouse just released their new collaborative album Cheat Codes, HipHopDX‘s best album of the year (so far).
During a recent Zoom interview, the seasoned MC-producer dream team discussed the project and other upcoming endeavors, including The Roots’ long-awaited follow-up to 2014’s … And Then You Shoot Your Cousin.
“The Roots album could be done whenever we need it to be,” Thought told DX. “We got enough songs, and I feel like it’s cohesive. It’s not like a, ‘We’re about to start,’ so it boils down to just that refinement, which songs are actually completed. We have hundreds of compositions, a couple hundred ideas, because it’s been a minute.”
Six years to be precise. Since releasing …And Then You Shoot Your Cousin, Black Thought, drummer Questlove and the rest of The Roots transitioned from the house band for The Late Show with Jimmy Fallon to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Black Thought, meanwhile, further established himself as a solo artist with the Streams of Thought series, and Questlove evolved into an Academy and Grammy Award-winning director for Summer of Soul (Or…When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised) and became the face of Gold Peak Iced Tea. Needless to say, they’ve been busy — but miraculously still found time to sketch out an arsenal of music.
“Questlove will tell you, ‘Yeah, we got 300 songs done,’ but I think the term ‘done’ is being used very loosely,” Thought said. “But Brian [Danger Mouse] can attest. I played the album for Brian, and he’s heard it. That was an album that I played for you, right?”
Danger Mouse replied, “Yeah. There’s lot of stuff there. I’m not sure about finished. I don’t know myself.”
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