Thing about Danger Mouse, though, is that he's much more than the sum of his eccentricities. DM -- Brian Burton to his mom -- has a genius for production and a fondness for offbeat vocal samples and bits of conversation as musical ordnance. DM manages to cobble those disparate bits and pieces into something odd and special. Contagious hooks abound: insidious little bass lines and infectious backing vocals evident on, say, "Don't Do Drugs," the ostensibly pro-pill anthem that combines cartoonish jazz samples with lines such as Whitney's chillin'/Bobby's chillin'/Let's get high, 'cause we love the feelin'.
Set against this backdrop, Jemini would seem an odd partner, what with his devotion to some of hip-hop's greatest clichés. But Jemini's clichés rise above; his bravado is genuinely funny, and "Bush Boys" -- sitting-duck target notwithstanding -- manages a level of sophistication not generally seen in protest lyrics. But Ghetto Pop Life isn't about Jem. Hip-hop bestows celebrity and legend on its best producers. You have the Neptunes and Timbaland and RZA and Paul and El-P, to name a few. And now, to name one more, you have Danger Mouse.
