Open Mike Eagle — Anime, Trauma and Divorce

Fifth solo studio album by Michael Eagle II aka Open Mike Eagle, rapper native from Chicago, Illinois. The tape features some guests, while the production is made by Caleb Stone, Black Milk, Frank Leone, Loden, Gold Panda and Nedarb.

The record seems to start well, and I mean that the cuts are just decent, thanks to midtempo trap rhythms and melodic samples, however, the more the record goes on the more annoying songs start to arrive. The first cuts also present one of the biggest problems of the edition, the annoying lame hooks. "Bucciarati" features a melodic, drumless production of Caleb Stone, with an rnb hook performed by Karl Faux, while Open Mike Eagle continues to perform bars with a spoken and near-spoken delivery style.

The fifth choice is the first sign that the production is starting to become not too easy to digest: there's a downtempo trap rhythm by Frank Leone and melodic samples, however the spoken delivery of the interpreter is supported by a cheap drum machine. The next track is even worse: Loden's forgettable trap rhythm, with dark samples, too loud drum and too weak rapper's voice even though he tries to go faster than usual, singing the chorus.

Track seven boasts an ambient rhythm (or similar), even a poor drum arrives at the end, but the guy sounds slow, lazy, uninspired. "The Black Mirror Episode" has a whimsical lo-fi production, with downtempo drum free to roam everywhere, lame-annoying hook and delivery that seems lively but isn't. Another trap-ambient beat follows with melodic samples and cheap drum, then pick number ten features a cheap beat trap, with snare drum, melodic samples and slow, annoying, lame delivery. The next track is similar musically, closing track twelve, where beatmaker Nedarb provides a trap soundscape with melodic samples, snare drums and a chillwave / vaporwave background, on which Little Ase seems to fare better than the lead rapper.

The album consists of 12 short pieces for a total of about 34 minutes of listening: most of the choices are average, due to weak production and a boring, lazy, unwilling, mostly spoken delivery style, most of the time with uninspired lyrics and poorly executed hooks. Forgettable record, 5/10.