If Cheat Codes – a joint album with Tariq Trotter AKA Black Thought on the mic and Brian Burton AKA Danger Mouse at the controls – feels long overdue, it’s because it is: the pair first conceived the record 15 years ago. Back then, Burton had made a name for himself as a maverick producer, moving from his bootlegged Beatles x Jay-Z mashup into his stint as half of pop-R&B project Gnarls Barkley. Trotter, meanwhile, was recording and touring as frontman of the Roots. An incendiary 10-minute freestyle in late 2017 reinstated his status as one of rap’s title contenders, heralding his 2020 solo album. It’s in this moment of resurgence that Burton returns to hip-hop, the pair pouring themselves into an ebullient record brimming with sheer love of the craft.
Both Burton and Trotter have an uncanny ability for scene-setting, the former wringing funk and jazz into a seamless sequence of cinematic beats somewhere between spaghetti western and crime drama, the latter readily supplying vivid rhymes. On Aquamarine, Trotter rides the ascent of a soaring instrumental to share metaphysical truths, historicise human evolution and reveal his own talent. “My bandwidth is a canvas cut from its frame / When I present ideas, naked and unashamed / It’s handwritten in Sanskrit on the 7 train,” he raps, signing off a verse that covers his name’s Quranic connotations and finds rhymes for Juilliard. Raekwon, A$AP Rocky and more guest on the album but all – save for MF Doom’s posthumous appearance – stand in Trotter’s shadow. Capably soundtracked by Burton, his soliloquies manifest as a window into himself, hip-hop and the human condition.
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