Album Review: Showbiz! by MIKE

This sprawling 24-track Hip Hop odyssey from Brooklyn-based MIKE was one of January's two strongest releases in the genre — the other being Philly rapper Ghais Guevara's Goyard Ibn Said (Fat Possum). Both are idiosyncratic, ambitious, and ultimately flawed records that are still highly ….

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At only 26, American rapper-producer MIKE has created a body of work that would rival most artists twice his age. And yet, as he prepares to release his tenth full-length, Showbiz!, the quality has never diminished. As the new record demonstrates, MIKE's syrupy flow and introspective ruminations have only gathered steam with each project. The album's opening, 'Bear Trap', lays the groundwork for MIKE's characteristic laid-back tone, a soulful vocal sample and shimmering piano floating unassumingly behind the track's resonant bass.

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If he hadn't already used it for one of his earlier releases, Weight of the World would have been an apt title for Brooklyn rapper MIKE's 10th studio album. But Showbiz! proves just as fitting, as the album portrays the entertainment industry--and, more broadly, the pursuit of success within it--as a relentless, soul-crushing machine that grinds down anyone caught in its gears. "Dreams of getting' rich, I was poor then/Nowadays, I don't pray for shit but for more strength," MIKE raps on the opening track, "Bear Trap." It's an acknowledgement that while success has vanquished one of his personal ills, it inevitably brings about more insidious ones.

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