Killer Mike Offers Impressive Empathy and Vague Politics on His Comeback Record ‘Michael’
In the Aughts, Killer Mike was a fiery maelstrom, the South’s answer to Ice Cube, and an Atlanta polemicist comfortable with both dope-boy fantasies and bruising Black politics. But it’s been eleven years since R.A.P. Music, a classic pairing with rapper/producer El-P that inspired the two to form the world-conquering duo Run the Jewels. On his sixth album, Michael, the rapper focuses on his personal life, particularly his late mother and grandmother, with uncharacteristic empathy and restraint, even as he continues to utilize his uniquely brusque vocal style.
Michael is a collaboration with No I.D., the Chicago producer and label executive not only known for his Nineties classics with Common but also, in recent years, for adding flourishes to recent epics like Jay-Z’s 4:44 and Vince Staples’ Summertime ’06. (No I.D. served as executive-producer with Killer Mike and Will Bronson; and produced several tracks.) His maximalist impulses result in a cascade of gospel cries and churchy organs, much of them delivered by Jason McGee & the Choir as well as keyboardist Warryn Campbell. A panoply of guests lends a hand, from El-P on “Don’t Let the Devil” to Mozzy on “Shed Tears” and Young Thug on “Run.” There are some welcome surprises, including a rare Andre 3000 cameo (alongside Future, no less) on “Scientists & Engineers” and Southern cult icon Fabo from D4L on “Something for Junkies.”
All these celebrity guests, spiritual uplift, and florid old-soul samples may be anathema to hardcore rap fans who already bristled at Run the Jewels festival-rocking antics and miss the onetime Grind Time Gang leader who once gleefully imagined murdering a Griselda Blanco-like drug lord on 2008’s “Good-Bye (City of Dope).” Meanwhile, listeners waiting for Mike to explain his complicated politics, and how a Bernie Sanders advocate showed support for Georgia’s hard-right Republican governor instead of rallying behind Democratic hero Stacey Abrams, will have to make do with the undeniably thrilling yet frustratingly vague “Talkn’ That Shit!” “Niggas talk to me on that woke-ass shit/Be the same niggas walkin’ on some broke-ass shit,” raps Killer Mike over a memorably grimy beat from DJ Paul of Three 6 Mafia and TWhy Xclusive that hearkens to the Mafia’s “Tear Da Club Up.”
Despite the sometimes-overwrought musical backdrop, Killer Mike remains an incisive and compelling lyricist who confidently takes Michael into unexpected places. On “Slummer,” he describes how a teenage romance led to an unforeseen pregnancy. “They call it adolescence ‘cause we learnin’ adult lessons,” he observes. The fact that Mike now portrays abortion as a simple matter of life and health will be a shock to those who remember him accusing Planned Parenthood of “planning miscarriages” on Run the Jewels’ “A Christmas Fucking Miracle.”
“It is evident/I do better when/I feel like the world against me and think I should never win,” raps Killer Mike on “Two Days.” Yet it’s clear that Michael is written from a musician, activist and, uh, landlord at the height of fame and personal growth. Some will understandably feel that his journey to the mountaintop was more interesting than the winner’s circle he sits comfortably in now. It’s all grist for a man who stays “High and Holy,” haters be damned.