Danger Doom: The Mouse and the Mask

When news first surfaced of this collaboration between forum-favorite emcee MF Doom and copyright-infringing producer Danger Mouse, keyboards were atwitter with conjecture of what the duo would produce. Cartoon themes were a given-- maybe even too obvious-- but no one thought MF and DM would bring in Meatwad, the mucus-throated glob of raw beef who spits more heat than a thousand Biggie Smallses. If you think I'm describing a fat rapper and not an actual wad of meat, I feel for you, but don't leave yet. If you listen to Doom, you expect the ludicrous, and The Mouse and the Mask is his most ludicrous to date. Possibly in reaction to the rampant comedy skits on rap records in the last decade, Doom and Danger go all out, calling in the Aqua Teen Hunger Force to help craft the best funhouse hip-hop since De La Soul Is Dead. It may not move the critical masses like Madvillainy, but if nothing else, Danger Doom will get Comic-Con going nuts.

By now, most fans know what to expect from the parties involved. MF Doom still wears his villainous mask and rhymes stuff with "goonie-goo-goo" and "poop," along with brilliantly enigmatic self-deprecations and disses so cryptic their targets are oblivious. Danger Mouse, as he's done with cartoon hooligans and mashing up G.O.A.T.s, displays a deft hand on the sequencer and a taste for whimsical soundtrack samples. Here he takes that penchant and amplifies it, conducting neck-snapping scores for long-lost Looney Tunes. And then there's Adult Swim, the four-hour block of absurdimation aired late-nightly on the Cartoon Network, which slants toward bizarro and has a tendency for extreme sarcasm. Forcing all this farce onto one record could be disastrous, but instead it comes off like one big calamitous Saturday-morning public access show.

Doom loves themes, as he's shown on Mmm... Food and his King Geedorah project, but never has the concept of an album had him sounding quite this chipper. The Adult Swim crew controls the vibe with ridiculous interludes (most notably, Master Shake contributes a series of escalatingly angry phone messages), but also inspires Doom to avoid the dourness that shades most of his other records. The labyrinthine self-analyses of Madvillainy are mostly absent, but Doom remains sharp, focused on slaying a cavalcade of smartass cartoons. Elsewhere, Cee-Lo stops by to croon over the fuzz and slap of "Bizzy Box"; Talib Kweli lightens up and raps simply about breakfast cereal; and Ghostface recollects his own days behind the disguise on "The Mask", which certainly builds anticipation for a rumored GhostDoom project.

Danger Doom won't change your life. It's not as revealing as Doom's other work, and Danger Mouse's big, Technicolor productions here are a little too trivial to be immortal. But for what it attempts-- which is basically a comedy record with no-joke skills-- it exceeds expectations. The intelligence of everyone involved keeps it from being Jeff Foxworthy-worthy, with the interludes and adlibs as rewindable as Doom's lyrics. Yes, I've heard Three 6 Mafia and Young Jeezy and Lil' Wayne, and the underground is keeping it so real. But on Saturday morning, when temples throb and lungs wheeze, I'm trying to sprinkle sugar on my corn flakes-- not cocaine.