A few years ago, when I first discovered The Grey Album, I made it a mission to find everything Danger Mouse had ever created. Needless to say, I was obsessed.
Everyone knows the story of The Grey Album by now, so I will spare you the details. But if you really aren't aware of the record, I suggest you Wiki that shit.
Anywho, I came upon another slept on gem in the Danger Mouse catalog, Ghetto Pop Life, a full-length collaboration with emcee Jemini the Gifted One. That album became one of my all-time hip hop favorites, only furthering my love and admiration for DM's output. The production was lavish, yet old school. Slick sonic backdrops for Jemini to do his thing on.
Around this same time, I started becoming more of a fan of hip hop stalwarts The Roots. I dropped by my local record store one day and picked up a copy of Illadelph Halflife, and it promptly changed my fucking life. To this day, as great as The Roots's most recent albums have been, Illadelph remains the album I spin most. It's just complete and utter perfection from beginning to end, most of this greatness coming in the form of lead emcee Black Thought's undeniably sick skills on the mic. Dude instantly became one of my favorite emcees ever.
Then one day, I'm scrolling the internet looking for something new to jerk off to, when suddenly I came across a story that seemed to have fallen from the cosmos: Danger Mouse and Black Thought were working on an album.
Per XXL Magazine:
He [Black Thought] and Danger Mouse are midway through a collaboration they’re calling Dangerous Thoughts.
I couldn't believe it. This was literally the greatest fucking news I had ever heard in my life at that time. It would promptly be surpassed by the announcement that Burger King was going to start selling apple fries.
But then.....nothing happened. 2007 came and went. 2008 came and went. Where was the album?
Black Thought would be interviewed in 2007 by The Formula in which he'd state:
It's going well. Like we are still working on it but I just got other shit to do and he has other shit to do but we are still doing the album. It don't really have a direction and shit though. I do albums that have direction when I'm doing different projects. This shit with Danger Mouse is just he and I getting together and seeing what comes out of it.
Translation: This shit is never going to happen.
And now my soul is effectively crushed. Danger Mouse has since blown up with his Gnarls Barkley collaboration with Cee-Lo, and Black Thought and The Roots have pumped out three albums, including the forthcoming How I Got Over, due in October. The Roots have also taken up a new gig as they now serve as the house band on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.
So this proposed collaboration made in heaven may never come to fruition. And to quote many a good man before me, that's a damn shame.
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