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“Belize” is the sixth track on "Cheat Codes", and it features a posthumous verse from the late rapper MF DOOM, who passed away on October 31, 2020.
This is the second time Danger Mouse, Black Thought and MF DOOM have been on a track together, the first being “Mad Nice”, a bonus track from MF DOOM & Danger Mouse’s collaborative album "The Mouse & The Mask".
Danger Mouse talked about the song’s creation in an interview with The Ringer, here’s what he said:
How did the DOOM feature come about? Was that something that you had kicking around?
"When DOOM and I finished the album, we kept working together for years here and there. Track here, track there, but not really a lot of finished stuff. And there was a time when that overlapped with me working with Tariq. They were both fans of each other, and so there were a few songs we did where I was like, “Hey, I got a verse from Black Thought. You want to do one?” He was like, “Yeah, great,” and then vice versa. This particular song was one that I never did get Tariq on, but was what we had talked about. We had talked about doing that. So I had it, and I just held it and held it, and when we were doing this project, decided to use it."
Are there any artistic considerations that go into working on a posthumous collab with an artist like DOOM? Are there any extra pressures, any extra care? I would imagine there are some emotions that go into it.
"At the time I didn’t realize it, but looking back on it, probably. I changed the music a few different times to make sure it was right. But Tariq helped with that, and helped with his input on it, and we were pretty confident this was good to go when it was time. But we’d had a couple of, actually, other versions of it musically, where the beats I thought were good at the time.
Sometimes you’re doing something creative, and you’re just like, “I know it’s not right.” Other people might not know exactly what it is, and you don’t even necessarily know how to make it right, but you just know it’s not. I started messing with it more and then realized it could be something that would work, that I felt like, “Oh man, this just sounds right.”"
"DOOM was a big fan of Tariq’s, The song that is now “Belize” was always unfinished, because I hadn’t been solidly working on anything with Tariq. Then, as we were working on the album, we realised we could finish it and it would fit this album. I had to get it right, because , “You’re not gonna get too many more of these – if any at all.” This will probably be the last time I have something with him on it. But I’m happy with how it turned out."
– Danger Mouse, via NME
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