Open Mike Eagle – Anime, Trauma & Divorce
Genre: Hip Hop
Score: 9/10
This is the latest full length album from Art-Rap pioneer and They Might Be Giants's biggest fan, Open Mike Eagle. In my opinion, Open Mike Eagle is the Softest Rapper in the Game, and I mean that in the best way possible. What to Expect: Mike is not your typical lyrical miracle type rapper that would just relentlessly spit verses at you like a never-ending printer. Despite his underground battle rap & freestyling roots, his albums tend to be cut from a much softer fabric, and he constantly comes off very nerdy, relatable, incredibly funny, and often self-deprecating. Although he’s been dropping mixtapes & albums for years, his 2014 breakthrough album Dark Comedy (a great album to start with) really helped plant Mike’s footing into the digital age. From then on, each project that Mike would drop would become more focused thematically and increasingly more confessional. His last album was even autobiographical, diving into his childhood growing up in the historic Robert Taylor Projects in the south side of Chicago. Over time, he’s grown to become one of my personal favorite rappers of the past decade.
So what’s new for Mike this album around? Well, he’s kind of going thru a divorce. He’s also been watching a lot of anime lately. I can’t really blame him, considering how traumatizing that entire experience sounds (hence the title). And like many of us, I’m sure the quarantine hasn’t really helped either. So, I’m expecting Open Mike as usual, only a bit more bummed out, to put it mildly.
Overall: Yeah. I definitely put it very mildly. This album is fantastic, and I hope fans receive this album really well because he’s making some of his sharpest songs yet on this record. But at the same time, I hope he’s seeing brighter days because I personally felt like I just grieved through his divorce with him.
Play by Play:
1. Death Parade – The feels surface the second that I press play. His verses talk about how a cycle of everyone “fucking” everyone up led up to his own personal traumatic experiences defining his current emotional state. I love how catchy that hook is, despite the pain in his voice. He’s sounding super regretful. I love the comic and wrestling references he uses (“I’m like Bandito, sometimes I flip and I find tranquilo”). It’s a really catchy track.
2. Headass (Idiot Shinji) – Oh cool, an unofficial anthem for the headass. It’s about time a song was made for the perfectly aged term. Video Dave’s feature is as funny as it is relatable. Mike’s rapping about his over analyzing and tendency to blow things out of proportion. The beat is dramatically sad and endearing. I love how the strings finish the song out as he raps out all of the different ways he’s a headass in a really funny and entertaining way. His flow and wordplay is super sharp, and his line about Peter Dinklage over the hook made me laugh out loud.
3. Sweatpants Spiderman – Beat’s slow, but pretty. The beats so far remind me of some of the more cinematic beats on Dark Comedy, as well as songs from former fellow Hellfyre Club members RAP Ferreira and Busdriver. His flow also reminds me of popular trap artists like the Migos. In his verses, the reality of his divorce and the ways in which he copes with it sinks in. You can feel the pain and existential dread in the hook as he copes thru the experience (as well as his feelings of middle age sinking in).
4. Bucciarati (ft Kari Faux) – Oh look, a Jojo reference. I like the understated hip house beat. Kari’s performance fits the nocturnal vibe of the track so perfectly. Her singing and rapping add so much to the song. It reminds me of untitled unmastered era Kendrick. As the hip house beat thumps in the distance, he raps with a serious sense of anxiety and he paints this feeling of unraveling really well. The title and hook are Jojo references. The horns at the end sound so nice ending the track out. This was a great choice for a single.
5. Asa’s Bop (ft. Lil A$e) – This beat, while lowkey, is incredibly dynamic and a really fun listen. Mike flows effortlessly about his inner anxieties. He’s afraid to check his bank account, he’s plugged in seeing how the other rappers are doing, he’s crying watching Evangelion calling himself “half Joestar half Shinji the Idiot”. Right when he feels like he’s about to tap out, he hears his son sing over the hook, and the synths that he harmonizes with hit like an epic reality check. His next verse goes into the realities of the starving artists in the streaming age, talking about how he’s “making pennies off songs, even if it’s small or it’s 9, 10 min long.” His son is actually pretty great over the hook. This hook actually goes quite hard.
6. The Edge of New Clothes – Lofi hip hop type of beat. This song is probably the closest to “classic” Open Mike Eagle. As mystical as the beat sounds, the real magic is in the bars. Dude references the Smashing Pumpkins and Eddie Pepitone as the beat lumbers and grooves in a really. That hook just sounds so crushing and devastating. The second verse is a therapeutic monologue about how unhappy he is. This album so far would also be a really sweet listen as an instrumental beat tape.
7. Everything Ends Last Year – The guitar intro is quiet and downtrodden. The beat is super sparse and slowly rises as he raps. It actually reminds me of a Midwestern emo ballad minus the whiny singing. His voice as he whispers his verses is claustrophobic. Him saying “It’s October and I’m tired” sounds as devastating as any Elliot Smith vocal line I’ve heard, to be completely honest. He’s lamenting on everything that ended last year: his potential business ventures, his marriage, as well as any friendships along the way. I feel like I’m in the “Trauma” part of the record, thematically.
8. The Black Mirror Episode – I love the groove of the beat. It goes really hard but in an cavernous eerie way. His flow reminds me of wacky rappers like ODB, Danny Brown, B Real, etc. Also, I have a very strong idea of exactly which Black Mirror episode he is talking about. “Happy home go to hell cause of tech shit” is the line that gave it away to me, personally. If you’ve seen that episode of Black Mirror, you know exactly what I’m talking about. If that is the case (he’ll never tell us), then you can clearly tell that the pain in his voice as he yells over the hook is pretty real. Hang in there, Mike. Shit really should’ve came with a content warning.
9. Wtf is Self-Care? – Oh cool, a song dedicated to self-care. It’s so painfully relatable. I love how cerebral the beat sounds. It’s the perfect soundtrack to a trial run of self-care attempts, with mixed results. I personally identify with the theme of doing better in order to stay whole. Though his delivery is way more sparse and less confident, but it clearly adds to the uneasy sound of the song than subtracts.
10. I’m a Joestar – I love the trap beat and the nice keys on it. His singing is very catchy on this. Mike’s telling you he’s a Joestar, a family of confident characters with unwavering resolve (Watch Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure if you have no idea what I’m talking about). Having being a fan of the show, I found his constant references to the legendary anime come off consistently life affirming and motivational. This song is clearly a lyrical pick me up for himself. I don’t blame him, considering the trauma he just endured for the past 9 tracks. I love the hook and the endearing lyrics. He sounds emotionally confident on this track.
11. Airplane Boneyard – Love the groove to the beat, as well as the warbly dub reggae samples. Overall, the beat provides the perfect musical backdrop for Mike to lament about how his entire rapping career went, thinking about all of the rough times and how he always stuck it out. He sounds noticeably collected emotionally. Overall, I really love the flow of this record and how Mike processes his grief throughout the record.
12. Fifteen Twenty Feet Ocean Nah (ft. Little A$e) – I love that he decided to include this track. Is it the best performed one? Of course not. It’s a casual freestyle with his son. But in the context of the record, it’s a heartfelt freestyle with his son couldn’t be a better ending to such a deeply personal and emotionally gripping record about a man navigating through a really terrible ordeal.
Score: 9/10
Favorite Track in Bold
Just my opinion