By Phillipe Roberts
Lockdown has been good to me and my damaged hearing. Miss me with the cranked sound systems, the clumsy stumbling through the crowd, the anxious routine of smoke breaks between sets. Catch me on the couch with a mug of tea, speakers loud enough to carry a little bit of bass across the room. Find me jamming over a hot stove, cooking dinner in headphones as the fireworks start to heat up the street outside. Away from the noise, away from the crowds, my ears are thriving.
Leave it to a livestream to kill the dream. A virtual concert of all things.
MIKE, the dazzling emcee whose rhymes caught my ear in my frantic first year in New York, was set to perform at 9:50pm, but I settled in early. The Twitch stream was goofy at first; glitching in and out consistently, hemmed in by a scrolling text chat of dozens of excited fans. But the lineup, an ensemble cast of producers, DJs, and rappers curated by Satellite Syndicate, hit heavy and refused to let up. Escee, AKAI SOLO, maassai, JWords, KeiyaA, Nappy Nina, Stas THEE Boss–each swerving the conversation in exciting directions, leaving the fans alternatively begging for more and praying that the stream would stay up. I was glued to the screen.
Day turned to night. A single floodlight, held up by one of the organizers, was brought in to keep the cozy backyard at least partially illuminated. By the time MIKE rolled in, right around 11:30, the couch-locked digital crowd had ballooned to well over 150. Heavy on the gratitude, with shout outs to the acts that had hypnotized us all day, he beamed, danced, and slid gracefully through a short set, leaving just enough time before midnight for an adorable group picture with the other acts. And leaving me, sitting on the couch, warm and fuzzy in disbelief, wishing for the first time in a long time that I could be there, in the yard, basking in the absurdity of live music.
Weight of the World might be best heard live–with a slight yet hilarious audio delay–at the tail end of a stunning lineup of Black musicians on a perfect summer night. But MIKE’s latest and absolutely greatest project to date is a towering achievement in intimate storytelling, with the muscle to lift you into his world from wherever you might be. Still haunted by inescapable grief, he rains his sorrows down on this cruel world with a fierce allegiance to the love that has carried him for so long.
MIKE’s pen is near-legendary at this point. After all, it’s not many who can go bar-for-bar with, and influence, Earl Sweatshirt at the same time. But on Weight of the World, MIKE’s production work as dj blackpower shines almost as bright as his lyrical chops. The atmosphere is as slippery as his spiraling moods, and loaded with clever details. The lethargic drag of “alert*” summons up those lurking demons with somber keys and melting bass, before gradually spilling into the torrential downpour of “coat of many colors", where harsh R&B chops and a brief but thrilling moment of total silence collide in a mournful soundscape that threatens to collapse at any moment. “Weight of the Word*” might be his masterpiece, a convoluted but fruitful journey through downbeat horns and pitchy soul, and a cartoonish funk interlude on the way to a deep and hungry final groove. He’s always worked well in tangling miniatures together, but here MIKE becomes a master of the sprawl, commanding it with authority and grace.
Don’t think that last year’s tears of joy was the beginning and end of MIKE’s struggle to process his mother’s death. Like all grieving, MIKE’s comes in stages, and Weight of the World still grapples–constructively, destructively, and exhaustively–with a pain that knows no bounds and the turmoil that has only tightened its grip. This is a document of pain, even at its lightest.
Some of the hardest moments come when MIKE hands off the beats to a friend. KeiyaA sets up a perfect double whammy on “get rich quick scheme” and “trail of tears”, putting MIKE face to face with a legacy of self-neglect (“the only thing I inherited was blockin’ help”) and setting up a heartbreaking send-off for his mother (“Keep swimming my beloved spirit, you know your son is near”). Throughout the record, he’s digging through fragments and memories, deflecting them with self-effacing humor: “Scribble off the sad shit, cause it’s all the same shit,” he sputters on “what’s home ½”. Seconds later, he ages himself up into cold maturity, taking stock of failed escapism: “When I rolled, I was feelin' for something that heal / But I know every bit of it harsh.” MIKE, still only 21 years old, raps like he’s lived a lifetime between records.
Those lost years constantly reflect back to the loss of his mother, unearthing an unease with himself that he remembers as a constant (“Remember cringin' at the mirror, I was not myself,” he reflects gravely on “trail of tears”). Nursing those wounds, he slowly pushes for acceptance and begins to relieve himself of that pain. “Weight of the Word*” finds MIKE achieving stark clarity, seeing that his mother prepared him for her absence: “I know my mama sing that song so I'll never forget,” he rhymes in the album’s catchiest chorus, lonely but warm to know that his memory–his pain and his patience–honors her too.
Watching MIKE shuffle and dance his way through Weight of the World’s harsh and beautiful revelations through the grainy webcam darkness of a livestream, you couldn’t help but latch on to the joy radiating through that backyard, the shared happiness of being as present as possible to witness the release of sorrow. Maybe our damaged ears needed this break, this opportunity to reflect with longing on how urgent and decisive our presence with each other can and should be. Winding back and forth through this divinely miserable miracle of a lockdown album, I’m only grateful to have briefly glimpsed that better world, even from a distance.