MIKE - Weight of the World ALBUM REVIEW

-
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

Spotify

Apple Music

YouTube Music



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lil Yachty - Let’s Start Here. ALBUM REVIEW

-
Image
I gotta keep holding to my promises about reviewing. I always love it when an artist takes a risk with their material. Whether or not it works out, I usually admire the risk and appreciate the fact that any artist can do something out of their comfort zone. Either way, the artist in question today is Lil Yachty, a rapper that has basically become a joke the longer his career’s gone on. However, going into a new genre out of left field isn’t totally new to rap. Childish Gambino jumping into the world of neo-soul with Awaken, My Love! , along with later projects from Mac Miller and Tyler, the Creator having more jazz influences, have proven that turning to a new genre for new ideas has worked out pretty well. Yachty, however, has turned to psychedelic rock in the vein of Tame Impala for this new album, Let’s Start Here. to mark the new chapter of his career. Let’s get into it. Having stuck around with Yachty during the rough patches, I can easily say that Let’s Start Here. is his best ...
Read more

Kendrick Lamar - GNX ALBUM REVIEW

-
Image
Woah, a new review? After this long? Yeah, sure. Why not? I got some plans in the works to keep this active in some form, and I’ll show off some more details in the post after this! What timing for an album to end up bringing this little site back, even if it’s just for a little bit of time. The last post on here was last June, and a lot has happened in my life since then, whether it’s in music or my personal life. Arguably, the biggest moment in music of the year was the beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar, which exploded just before this summer with “Like That,” a song off of the first of two Future and Metro Boomin’ albums from this year, WE DON’T TRUST YOU . I don’t need to go into just how massive this beef was (and in still is in some ways), but if you need one major takeaway, I’ll say this: One of the biggest hits of the year, regardless of genre, essentially boiled down to Kendrick calling Drake a pedophile for four-and-a-half minutes. “Not Like Us,” a song where one of the m...
Read more

Porter Robinson - Nurture ALBUM REVIEW

-
Image
I wanna just lay in a field of grass, but I’m allergic to pollen :( I’ve always had a very strange relationship with electronic music. The bad music I’ve heard in the genre has been some of the worst music I’ve ever heard, and the good stuff is some of the greatest music I’ve ever heard. For some context, we have artists like The Chainsmokers on one end, and Daft Punk on the other. There are some subgenres in here too that work. Electropop is one of them, being an obvious fusion of pop and electronic music. In the little community of the AOTY website, the users there have been hyped as hell for this Porter Robinson album, Nurture . It’s apparently his first in seven years, and I’ve only heard one single from it, titled “Musician.” While it wasn’t the best electropop song I’ve heard, it’s certainly an interesting sound that I think can work pretty well. So, with how anticipated it is in the AOTY community, I figured I should take a listen and see what all the fuss is about. Let’s get in...
Read more