Danger Mouse

Danger Mouse found international stardom when he created 2004's The Grey Album, a blend of Jay-Z's The Black Album and the Beatles' The White Album. He quickly outgrew that novelty hit to become one of pop music's most respected and innovative producers. Born Brian Burton and raised in Athens, Ga., he released his first projects under the pseudonym Pelican City. Switching aliases to Danger Mouse, he produced 2003's Ghetto Pop Life with '90s New York rapper Jemini the Gifted One. Danger Mouse seemed set for a career as an underground producer until The Grey Album. Reportedly downloaded millions of times and generating a widely publicized cease-and-desist letter from EMI, it launched him into a new stratosphere. Danger Mouse quickly proved he was more than a hip-hop producer by working on Gorillaz' international pop smash Demon Days. He then teamed up with MF Doom as Danger Doom in 2005. By 2011, he had tallied several best-selling collaborations with indie and alternative artists, particularly Gnarls Barkley, a pairing with Cee-Lo Green. In 2011, he won a Producer of the Year Grammy for The Black Keys' Brothers and Broken Bells, a collaboration with The Shins' singer, James Mercer.