Cheat Codes is the eventual culmination of a long-simmering on-again/off-again effort by longtime mutual admirers Black Thought and Danger Mouse to sharpen each others’ steel, and that could account for why both artists sound so comfortable (though not quite complacent) in this stylistic juxtaposition. As a rapper, Black Thought’s track record of relentless power-focused flow and rewind-demanding punchline density has always benefited from production — sampled or otherwise — that finds both the subtle melancholy and the era-agnostic retrofuturemindedness in boom-bap’s structure. DM fulfills that sound by bringing his familiar tics to his first full-length rap album production in eons, favoring the psych-soul and cinema-lounge source material that’s given his best productions a tongue-in-cheek tweak of vintage sophistication. But Black Thought’s evocative depth keeps things grounded, continuing to build strength off his decades representing a once-idealized, once-mocked, now elder-statesmanlike blend of conscious-minded and hyperliterate lyricism. And that cultivates a space where he and his collaborators (postmortem DOOM as ever-living internal-punchline god, a scalding-asphalt A$AP Rocky/RTJ throwdown, Conway the Machine powerfully toeing the detached/intense line) can lean into their most artistically ambitious tendencies.

A collaboration nearly twenty years in the making, Danger Mouse and Roots MC Black Thought first floated the idea of working together back when the producer was making waves – and fighting legal battles – in the wake of Jay-Z/Beatles mashup The Grey Album. When they finally made good on it, the pair delivered a masterpiece. Cheat Codes is hip hop of an unashamedly vintage hue: its breaks dusty and funky, its rhymes crackling with a whip smart dexterity and righteous intensity. Songs such as “No Gold Teeth,” “Belize” and “Aquamarine” sparkle as all-time classics of the genre, while appearances from MF Doom, Raekwon, Joey Bada$$, Inflo and Michael Kiwanuka only serve to confirm the gold standard the duo have set.