The Bridge MIKE Built

Lately, a major movement has pushed hip-hop’s underground to the mainstream, with many underground artists being recognized. Although no longer underground himself, a major leader in this movement is Earl Sweatshirt, an introspective, experimental, and, quite frankly, influential artist with a generational-level rapping ability. His magnum opus, “Some Rap Songs,” received an 8.8/10 on a platform that gave Playboi Carti’s most recent release a 7.7/10. The same platform that gave Drake’s recent “ICEMAN” album a 4.8/10. This platform is called Pitchfork.¹ They critically review significant album releases while considering both the meaning and context behind the album, as well as the artistic rating.

Earl Sweatshirt’s lyricism is known and revered for its deep wordplay and conversational delivery, earning him comparisons to hip-hop greats such as MF Doom and Mos Def. But back when he was in the middle of creating his masterpiece, “Some Rap Songs,” he spent a lot of time around another upcoming rapper, who had a profound impact on how Earl presented his best album yet…

This rapper’s name is MIKE, self-producing almost all of his music under the moniker “djblackpower.” And he, just like Earl Sweatshirt, is a deeply introspective, experimental, and influential artist. In 2019, when MIKE’s mother passed away, he began channeling the raw, powerful emotions into music. In the year or two following his mother’s death, MIKE released two albums, one being rated an 8.6/10 and the other an 8.0/10. But let’s strip away the numbers for a second. “Tears of Joy” is a very personal, sorrowful tribute to the death of his mother, in which he delivers his signature stream-of-consciousness style writing, all wrapped in the warm embrace of his production, which, in one song, “right here next to you, baby,” sounds like being wrapped in a blanket as a loving voice circles you.

Exactly one year after the release of “Tears of Joy,” MIKE created “Weight of the World.” In this album, MIKE uses his lyricism to articulate the unresolved feeling that remains after the acute pain of grief. Do not let its lower rating fool you; it is arguably just as great as its predecessor, “Tears of Joy.” In “Weight of the World,” MIKE’s production underwent major improvement; in his former albums, his production had always cultivated a certain atmosphere, but with the release of “Weight of the World,” MIKE’s atmosphere was not just something you’d feel; it was something you were in.

In “delicate,” MIKE juxtaposes his experiences of poverty and being forced to survive with the numbness he felt as a defense mechanism against grief, all while his voice is being almost drowned out by the textured vocal sample. This vocal sample repeats, “listen to what I say, oh yeah,” — “…no.” The sample itself articulates the feeling of isolation as a request to listen is met with an uncompromising “no,” mirroring the uncaring nature of the universe when it forces grief upon someone. If you did not already hear the resemblance, “delicate” shares the same sample as “right here next to you, baby.”² From that sample, MIKE created a song that embodies how it feels when the world does not respect your requests, and he created another song that uses a warm, intimate part of the same sample to emphasize the support of family.

Now, to delve into MIKE’s roots and what they did for the hip-hop world. MIKE released his first breakthrough album, “MAY GOD BLESS YOUR HUSTLE,” in 2017, around a year before Earl’s magnum opus, “Some Rap Songs.” Before dropping this album, MIKE was only 18 years old, struggling to maintain his independence after moving away from his mother, with his father, to Philadelphia, and then later New York. After arriving in New York, MIKE decided to drop out of college to pursue music. This decision led to him becoming the cofounder of an influential community of young hip-hop artists from New York. This “collective,” including Ade Hakim, King Carter, and MIKE himself, became known as [sLUms]. He then used the momentum behind the newly formed collective to release “MAY GOD BLESS YOUR HUSTLE,” without the backing of a major record label.

And the meaning at the core of this album is centered around his mother. See, the album’s title is actually a supportive comment his mom gave him while he struggled for his independence. And its cover? A picture from a video of MIKE’s mother crossing a bridge while scared, pleading, “Can I go back?” as the guide tells her, “Nah, nobody goes back. You have to keep going forward.”

“MAY GOD BLESS YOUR HUSTLE” is a sonic representation of the experience of leaving one place, going to another, and growing. It shines a bright light on the internal battles of life and depression, and at the center of that light is the stability and love MIKE received from his mother. In “Hunger,” the second song on the album, also MIKE’s most-streamed song on Spotify, he delivers stark imagery of what it means to balance the literal hunger of being broke with the metaphorical hunger for success and money. He raps:

—illustrating the yearning he experiences for his mother, who did not move with him to New York.

MIKE found himself walking on this bridge, too, before it snapped.

June 21st, 2017. Two years following that date, MIKE released “Tears of Joy,” a very personal, sorrowful tribute to the death of his mother. In 2017, as MIKE navigated an unfamiliar cityscape while trying to build independence, he found solace and even depended on his mother. He depended on her crossing that bridge, looking back, asking, “Can I go back?” but continuing across regardless. MIKE found himself walking on this bridge, too, before it snapped, leaving his mother unable to continue forward, and MIKE unable to go back. Choosing to move forward, MIKE dealt with his grief by illustrating it through his music. Through his exceptionally vulnerable and introspective approach to hip-hop, he inspired an entire movement of artists, including the previously mentioned Earl Sweatshirt, Navy Blue, Mavi, AKAI SOLO, and Medhane. Through his music, he taught an entire generation of up-and-coming rappers that they could be vulnerable, and he taught them how to make it sound good.

In 2016, Earl Sweatshirt, who MIKE looked up to at the time, caught wind of MIKE’s music, even purchasing his actual first album, named “longest day, shortest night.” Shortly after that, another major artist, Wiki, introduced MIKE to Earl Sweatshirt, and Earl became inspired by the introspective, atmospheric sound of MIKE’s “MAY GOD BLESS YOUR HUSTLE,” leading to the later release of Earl’s 2018 “Some Rap Songs.”

Earl Sweatshirt and MIKE are two of the leading forces in a movement within hip-hop that emphasizes vulnerability, introspection, melancholy, and quiet resistance. Through murky, sometimes melancholy production that often drowns out all it touches, MIKE managed to create a current, a medium of emotional expression for himself and those inspired by him, to illustrate and process their vulnerabilities. Now, 9 years after the release of “MAY GOD BLESS YOUR HUSTLE,” MIKE has built his shared influence with Earl Sweatshirt into a full album, produced entirely by SURF GANG, and it’s named “POMPEII // UTILITY”…