MIKE - Weight of the World ALBUM REVIEW

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The [sLUms] movement has been slowly becoming a bigger and more popular sub-genre in the music industry. I’ve already covered it in my review of MAVI’s Let The Sun Talk, an album that’s very similar to the one I’ll be talking about here, so I’ll keep it brief. Some Rap Songs from Earl Sweatshirt made me discover this sound and Let The Sun Talk made me enjoy the aesthetic, but I didn’t truly fall in love with the glitchy lo-fi palettes with loopy vocal samples yet. Then, MIKE decided to show up. I’ve heard his other records, but his latest showing, Weight of the World, made me realize something about songwriting in rap music that I hadn’t thought about before. Let’s get into it now and see what that is.

Weight of the World is an abstract hip-hop with jazz and plunderphonics undertones. Now, with every different thing going on in the world right now from the coronavirus pandemic to racial tensions being at an all-time high here, it’s a very scary time to be in America. This is nearly one year after MIKE’s tragic opus Tears of Joy, and a lot has changed in between that amount of time. He’s still as sullen and depressed as he was on Tears of Joy, but here, he’s more optimistic. Like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Like there’s hope just beyond the horizon. MIKE’s writing is some of the best this year, and his masterful wordplay doesn’t even come close to being passed up anytime soon. All of the tracks are pretty short, almost like little vignettes or a sketch you’d see on Saturday Night Live, only if the cast was looking a little bleak. Speaking of bleak, the only downside that I’d give Weight of the World is that it’s not as emotionally jarring as it thinks it is. The already-mentioned great writing tries its best to gut punch you every chance it gets, but it’s too consistent to leave a true mark. One more thing to mention is that one of the sole features (and the only one considered high profile) is from Earl Sweatshirt himself on the track “allstar.” MIKE does an incredible job, but Earl absolutely washes him out. If Earl at his prime can out rap Kendrick Lamar on a song, he can pretty much do anything.

Weight of the World is one of the most impressive releases this year, and is now an official challenger for my Album of the Year race. MIKE’s writing is the best of any rap album this year so far and makes up for its production shortcomings. Even as I give this record so much praise, I still think MIKE can top this. I honestly have no clue how he’ll do it, but I’ll be here for it. This is the record that made me fall in love with the [sLUms] movement.


9/10


Stream Weight of the World here

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