Though fans haven’t seen an absence from Killer Mike, there has been an absence percolating as fans have gone 12 years since a solo outing by the Atlanta Rapper. There’s no better time than the present; with that, Killer Mike delivers an album full of socio-political commentary combined with personal introspections that boast the themes he wants to relay. Aptly titled Michael, the album contains music pertinent to Killer Mike’s upbringing, the visualizations of the truth – where he takes note and relays the bias-racial divide – and flexing without regressing to the means of typicality. It’s awe-inducing – keeping me on my toes. There aren’t genuine moments where I found myself detached from the music, though minor inconsistencies have left me yearning for a tighter album, like its pacing, which begins to teeter slightly after the mid-way point. Yet, as I kept it looping, there weren’t moments I disliked, despite being a little flawed. Michael sees Killer Mike triumphantly returning as he rounds the bases with some illustrative music that you can overlook the minor missteps.
Michael doesn’t try to mince words or sounds, never sidestepping towards creating something more universally expansive between genres (i.e., Pop), but more of something that can be expansive sonically while offering lyrical depth to get their word across. Though there are moments you can sense the radio appeal, like “Down By Law” or the others that have more sing-songy features – like “Exit 9” and “Motherless” – to elevate the scale and range of the direction, albeit the hooks fluctuating in quality. It offers insight inside the emotional basin filled with these gripping, lingering feelings that allow Killer Mike to relent and wear his sleeves bare so the heart never gets placated. As he does so, the production equally treads some familiar territory – it contains this abundance of character and the interconnectivity between vocal or humming harmonies coating the percussion for angelic choral nature. Not every song has a proper hook, like “Shed Tears,” where it’s a bridge between verses instead of a more formal chorus, or with “Two Days,” where you notice a beautiful deconstruction of a standard structure and getting re-written differently to push these sensibilities.
With melodic vocal performances that are more lavish – like “Down By Law,” where Cee-Lo Green delivers this beautifully nuanced performance in the outro – there are more chances individual notes don’t strum together perfectly, further leaving you with a bottle half full of something that does enough to round out the song around Killer Mike & featured rappers’ flows. As Cee-Lo provides the outro verse, his presence becomes retroactively more pronounced, unlike that of thankugoodsir, who’s forgettable on “Don’t Let The Devil.” It’s similarly the case with Blxst on “Exit 9” and Kaash Paige on “Spaceship Views,” where they become more of an afterthought, unlike Cee-Lo or Eryn Allen Kane, who makes sure she gets heard with each song she gets featured on – “NRich,” “Scientists & Engineers,” and “Motherless.” However, as modest as some performances are, these moments cause a stir as the pacing inflates and deflates before and after “Scientists & Engineers.” Before it, it felt like the album was moving at a consistent speed, never chugging along like it was running late, but as it bends the corner, it starts trotting along slower, leaving you with some forgettable moments, non-forgettable rap verses, and some quality production, yet, it’s those forgettable that aren’t tangible with its connectivity.
Much of what Killer Mike raps about reflects notions of black perseverance – especially in his flex tracks where they are more potent rags-to-riches content – religion, race, drug use, and more, as he interconnects them into this more prominent portrait that hits the nail on the coffin consistently. If there is one aspect that seldom falters, it’s Killer Mike’s writing, which holds no bounds in telling it how it is. He uses his linguistic talent to weave fantastic commentary on today’s reality, especially as you see it transcend music to becoming a lifestyle, which he brings up in “Something For Junkies.” Often, he digs deeper into the nuances of the surface layers themes, like on “NRICH,” where he tackles the mental divide that comes when racial jealousy drives droves of people to hate on their success. It’s been seen throughout the years with laws and pay discrepancies based on gender and race, and these notions of having a wall to stop consistent rises. That depth continues with songs like “Run” and “Motherless,” the latter of which shows perseverance through the darker moments while the former looks at the nuanced understanding that freedom isn’t legitimized, as there are situations that don’t allow one to succeed to get by without drawbacks, like the fractured justice system in the United States.
The production on Michael is dark and glossy, feeling more pronounced than the beats on the last Run The Jewels album, where albeit being good, they felt too similar to past sounds without much growth. With production from DJ Paul, No. I.D., Beat Butcha, James Blake, Don Canon, and Cool N’ Dre, to name a few, there is a consistency to relaying tonal motifs from song to song. It offers an expanded space for Killer Mike to flow, like the fantastic Crunk, bouncy beat of “Talkin’ That Shit,” which blends the best of Trap music with that of Crunk, and you get this wild hybrid that elevates the playing field for Mike. We get hints of other styles, like the soulful boom-bap from the Cool N’ Dre produced “Slummer” or that mid-2000s Mixtape DJ–Percussion-centric beat with a southern flair from Don Cannon on “Two Days.” There’s some fantastic layering on many of the songs, but the divergent shift into slightly hollower territory, though not all distractful, with “Exit 9” and “Run,” even with the latter being a phenomenal highlight that contains a masterful verse from Young Thug. It comes to no surprise as the featured rappers bring it with top quality.
Killer Mike delivered with this one. It’s fluid and has a firm footing, even through the missteps, so I can’t recommend this enough, especially if you’re a fan of Hip-Hop. It’s expansive and triumphant, allowing the listener to visualize what Killer Mike relay and then some. Give it a listen; trust me on this; I won’t steer you the wrong way, but if I do, leave a comment below!
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