Black Thought Talks Being Perceived As An Underrated Emcee

Black Thought

Where do you rank the Philly-raised rhymer?

Many diehard Hip Hop devotees view Tarik “Black Thought” Trotter as one of the greatest rappers of all time. However, some mainstream rap fans may not be as familiar with The Roots frontman.

Throughout his four-decade career, Black Thought released projects as a member of The Roots and as a soloist. The Philadelphia-raised wordsmith recently teamed with producer Danger Mouse for the Cheat Codes album.

Both Black Thought and Danger Mouse joined Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1 to discuss their new collaborative project. Thought was asked about being perceived as an underrated emcee.

“I think over the years I’ve definitely felt like, yeah. I mean, people, everyone says that. Everyone I meet, ‘You’re so underrated. You’re so underrated,'” responded Black Thought.

The 50-year-old Grammy winner added, “Or you’re in interviews and it’s, ‘How do you feel to be so underrated?’ But yeah, I don’t know. The people whose opinions matter to me have always properly rated me, so it’s never really been a huge deal for me.”

Black Thought and Danger Mouse’s critically-acclaimed Cheat Codes collaborative LP includes features by Raekwon, Kid Sister, Joey Bada$$, Russ, Dylan Cartlidge, MF Doom, A$AP Rocky, Run The Jewels, and Conway The Machine.

“It was all really organic. Everybody that’s on the album is somebody we knew or worked with before in some kind of way, but we didn’t really add any of the rappers until our part was done at the end,” Danger Mouse told Zane Lowe.

Danger Mouse’s discography contains The Grey Album as well as two albums with CeeLo Green as Gnarls Barkley. As a member of The Roots, Black Thought took part in the creation of numerous LPs since the early 1990s. Thought dropped his debut solo album, Streams of Thought, Vol. 3: Cane & Able, in 2020.