Open Mike Eagle Interview Blowed Agains
Michael Eagle is stressed. Before his prove at the Barracuda in Austin, Texas on September 17th, cat ears and a suitcase need to be procured. The former, for his reality television set show documenting the tour (Dead Donkey), and the latter, for travel ease. The suitcase should take precedent—Open Mike Eagle is bringing his new record, Brick Body Kids Still Daydream, across the country—but Eagle and his best friend from college, Video Dave, are actually caught upwardly about the cat ears. So instead of at the venue or in a hotel room, we talk about this record, being black in America, and our Cheeto President in Hawkeye'southward rented minivan, traversing the complexities of Interstate 35 looking for Ross: Dress For Less.
Open Mike Hawkeye has been an independent rap staple since he dropped Unapologetic Art Rap in 2010. That debut presented a rapper fully formed and fully committed to an aesthetic ideal, unrelenting in the pursuit of music equal parts funny, scathing, and deeply original. Art rap has come a long way since Eagle helped coin the term—it ways something much different and then than it does at present. It's up for contend whether he or fellow Angeleno Busdriver was the start to utilise it, withal. Ask either and they'll probably merely laugh in your face.
Eagle's been building off this style for vii years, culminating in the only released Brick Body Kids Yet Daydream, an ode to the now destroyed Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago. Eagle was born in Chicago merely now lives in Los Angeles, and this new record is a view from his childhood, putting names and faces to lives destroyed alongside the rubble. Eagle's aunt grew up in this community, and many of his childhood memories are fastened to her and these homes. This tape is a tribute, a grieving process, and a wake-upwards call for those oblivious.
The album is about being black and willfully forgotten in America, purposefully erased for no other reason than skin color. While there are plenty of funny lines on Brick Torso Kids, the record is noticeably more serious in tone than Eagle's earlier, hysterical efforts. The subject thing clearly dictated the emcee's writing way this time around. For Open up Mike Eagle, it's getting harder to extract the cool from the everyday without normalizing this hellscape.
Only he's still hellbent on finding the perfect set of cat ears, something he has no trouble laughing at. We hatch a program at Ross: Dress For Less in which I buy a $100 pair of true cat headphones (the verbal pair Eagle deliberated over for a while in Houston that morning) and render them the side by side twenty-four hours as Eagle, Video Dave, DJ AlwayzProlific, and opening act Sammus head to the Midwest.
Everything goes according to plan. The evidence is stellar—the crowd ecstatic, already rapping along to new cuts off of Brick Body Kids. Subsequently, a long merch line forms, where Hawkeye interacts with every fan making a purchase. He sells so many records and t-shirts, he decides to buy the cat headphones from me instead of going with our initial return program. The headphones volition become a mainstay on Expressionless Ass and may just become Mike's go-to pair for a uniquely feline domicile listening experience. When we aren't discussing the nuances of perfectly constructed cat ears, we bear upon production techniques, getting besides high at the airport, and a pervading apathy that'southward uniquely American. —Will Schube
And so we're off to pick up true cat ears. What for?
Open Mike Hawkeye: Aye man, we're picking up cat ears! Nosotros demand cat ears for the show we're shooting, for Nighttime Comedy TV. Dead Ass is the reality show that's covering the tour and we need some true cat ears.
How's the reality testify going then far?
Open Mike Eagle: Nobody's watching the videos correct now, and we think they're really hilarious.
What'due south the idea behind them?
Open up Mike Hawkeye: Information technology's our version of a reality show, which is basically a surreal-ality testify. Everything'southward amped up, there's humor all over the identify, mostly shedding light on the differences in perception versus reality in indie rap touring. Just touching on all the stuff we become through here.
Since 2014 or so, the 'art rap' term you helped coin and pioneer has become a household phrase—
Open Mike Eagle: Is it a household phrase? People walk around their house in slippers with corn cob pipes and say, 'You know what, ma? I wanna put on some of that art rap.'
Has the term changed at all from when you first started using information technology? Does it achieve the same purpose?
Open Mike Eagle: It definitely means something different from when I started using it considering at that time, there wasn't a lot of room for self-expression or vulnerability in mainstream rap. There was no room for subtle humor or whatever of the personal, nuanced ways of expressing a point of view in rap music. But that'southward changed a lot in the last ten years. Yous can be real sensitive and popular, yous tin exist real socially conscious and popular, you can be super artsy, you can vesture dresses. So, I don't think fine art rap means the aforementioned thing as it meant when I started using it. Looking at that Bandcamp piece, I think information technology means something different. I'one thousand not quite sure what information technology means. It might be, it might speak to more of an economic state of affairs than an artistic one these days.
Is that DIY, economically sustainable model something you learned from older rappers like Busdriver and Myka 9?
Open Mike Eagle: Yeah, I came upward in DIY rap following the lineage of Projection Blowed artists—Aceyalone, Abstruse Rude, and Busdriver. I used to intern, quote-unquote, in the Project Blowed Records role which meant I just showed up at that place everyday. I was working a day job at that time and I'd evidence up during my lunch breaks. And then I would prove up later work and I'd merely be there learning how it was that artists of that caliber were making coin from the music business. It just taught me a bunch about it. In that location are expert and bad things virtually coming up DIY, though. You tin can accident your load before you become any sort of mainstream attention. Yous tin can have xx albums out and a poor sales history on iTunes—all this stuff that can shoot yous in the pes. DIY touring is a nightmare, but it'due south what you sometimes take to practice. You lot too accept to have a plan to not do that one day. Considering there are a lot of ways to do that wrong for a very long time.
A lot of your music is extremely funny, extremely witty. While Brick Body Kids Still Fantasize has enough of precipitous lines, did the heft of the concept dictate your more serious writing style? Was this an intentional decision before you began writing?
Open up Mike Eagle: I've just been stressed the fuck out, man. A lot of information technology has to do with our current political situation. That shit stresses me out; these new, fresh iterations of racism and shit that we take to deal with. All this stuff in pop civilisation that nosotros thought we had gotten by, that seems to not be going away. Information technology was enough to take to say, 'black lives matter.' That's already an absurd matter to have to say! But at present we have to say, 'Hey guys! Neo Nazis are bad! Information technology's bad! Don't practice that!' That's crazy. All that shit stresses me out. When I'm stressed out and I'yard making music, I terminate having the room to express mirth, unless I'm finding some style to point out the absurdity of matters. Now, I don't know how to make this shit funny. There are jokes at that place, I just don't know how to pull them out yet. In that location are jokes all over the place.
You fabricated Hella Personal Flick Festival with one producer [Paul White]. Why did you decide to make Brick Torso Kids Still Daydream with a group of unlike producers?
Open Mike Eagle: Making records with a bunch of different people is easier for me because I'm a command freak and I'yard a actually terrible collaborator. It's easier for me to be a dictator than information technology is to be a collaborator. I like to dominion my albums with an iron fist and I like to cutting a vocal when I experience like cutting a vocal, not having to have a conversation with somebody nigh it beforehand. It'south just easier for me to exercise. I end up maxim more of the judgement I want to say when I'one thousand doing information technology by myself. I stop upwards making concessions when I do an anthology with one person for the sake of the cohesion of the audio. It'due south non as fun for me.
Your records are all fairly conceptual. Do you discover it easier to write and organize your ideas when there'southward a throughline or a common thread between the tracks?
Open Mike Eagle: When I'm making a record, I'll start making songs and at some indicate through the process of making songs, a theme starts to emerge. Once I recognize what the theme is, then I outset going harder at it. The last half of the songwriting process is more than on the nose, dealing with the thing. The showtime few songs I wrote for this anthology were most—like, "No Selling" was a song I wrote very early on on. "Wedding Ghosts" was a song I wrote very early on. I was noticing this crazy aloofness in those songs. I wanted to figure out where that was coming from. I recall it was all getting at this hardening. I started the line from at that place.
On "(How Could Anybody) Feel at Home," you have that line, "I dice in all of my dreams." Is it hard to find the motivation to rap in 2017, with all of this toxic shit surrounding us 24/seven?
Open Mike Eagle: I don't know what I was getting at with that line. I think I was just expressing how stressed the fuck out I am.
Well, that line when paired with the album championship, what does a dream represent if blackness people are dying in them?
Open Mike Eagle: Death is a truth for everybody. Nosotros come up face to face with it a lot. The stress of life every bit a black American is the stress of constantly dealing with trauma and never really having any systems available that tin walk yous through how to procedure it. Decease dreams are just manifestations of not beingness able to process stress correctly.
This is a distinctly Chicago record. Was it easier to approach this album from an exterior perspective, living in LA at present?
Open Mike Eagle: I remember the age I am now, I was able to understand the story of that housing complex ameliorate. I go back and forth in my head a lot about my relationship to Chicago—being called an LA rapper versus a Chicago rapper. I wasn't making this record to formally make whatever connection to Chicago, only it'due south a lot easier to talk about Chicago when I talk nearly it equally a setting for me growing up. Nobody can take that away from me, even if I never live there over again. That'south the part of Chicago that's mine—the '80s and the '90s. That's something I tin can lay claim to.
Since then many of your childhood memories are grounded in the Robert Taylor Homes, do you call back part of this concept was an endeavor to revitalize that now destroyed past?
Open Mike Eagle: A lot of the album isn't about what it personally meant to me as it is imagining what it was for the people that lived there, got kicked out of in that location, and had to experience that; experiencing life in the new places they are now, and the experiences of the 10,000 people they tin't even account for after the redistribution happened. Imagining those stories, wanting to mine that space, that'southward what it's almost. Stuff virtually me filters out through those narratives, just it doesn't start from a place of talking virtually me, except for the concluding vocal, of course ["My Auntie's Edifice"]. That's merely me beingness stressed out almost people existence treated that style.
That line on "Brick Body Complex," "Don't phone call me a rapper/ My motherfucking name is Michael Eagle," seems to say a lot. Is this new album your nearly definitive statement on who you are every bit a person?
Open Mike Hawkeye: Probably, yeah. That's a reflection of time-infinite, man. This is my sixth record. Somebody on Twitter asked me if there was an arc to this album, and there's an arc to all of my albums. That's something I've always been witting of, having an arc. But I think I know how to do it at present. I tin imagine the listener going through the record. It's more a reflection of me having a bit more than of an acumen with the arts and crafts now than I have earlier.
Is there whatever political art that helped inspire this record?
Open Mike Eagle: I was just recently told that OutKast's "B.O.B" video references an Atlanta housing projection that got demolished. I didn't even know nigh that. There were some homes that were visually referenced as the setting of that video. I thought that was actually cool, that there was prior precedent.
How about any songwriters or political leaning musicians that yous looked towards?
Open Mike Eagle: You know who I desire to write like? I want to write like Jeffrey Lewis. That motherfucker, every one of his songs has such a distinct bespeak of voice. He's a guy I find myself wanting to fashion songs like. I don't know if any of these—except perchance "My Auntie's Edifice." I think that'south maybe a song Jeffrey Lewis could have penned if that happened to him.
What exercise you lot recollect nearly people calling this record political? I call up all of your music is pretty political…
Open up Mike Eagle: Aye, I'm political. My records are gonna be political.
Why practice you remember people have been calling this your well-nigh political record?
Open Mike Eagle: Probably because I say 'garbage king' a lot and people know that'south about that dickhead Trump. I've beaten upwardly the Koch brothers in a song earlier, but I've never directly addressed a political leader in that manner earlier. So peradventure that seems more overt than past stuff.
Practise you like going on tour?
Open up Mike Eagle: I love this bout. I loooooove this tour. [Equally nosotros laissez passer a Doubletree Inn] I honey that Doubletree, too. I'm sad I'm not staying there this time. They requite you a cookie. Doubletree e'er gives you a really hot cookie when you lot bank check in. Doubletrees are incredible. I couldn't afford that this time.
Why practice you dear this bout?
Open Mike Hawkeye: Because I'thou traveling with my friends, Video Dave and AlwayzProlific. This means I become to take less money home, simply it too means I won't die from an edible weed overdose in the aerodrome alone like I almost did terminal tour.
Allow'due south re-visit that memory!
Open up Mike Hawkeye: I ate this cube thing. I didn't read the directions, I simply ate it considering I eat a lot of edibles and I was similar, 'Fuck it, information technology's a lilliputian, tiny affair. I'll just swallow the whole affair.' I ate it right earlier I was getting on the plane. I sank into the chair while they were boarding. I was like, 'This is bad…' I was in first class on this flying. In get-go class you don't desire to go to sleep because y'all desire to experience it. I wanted to force myself to autumn asleep because I idea I was dying from being too loftier. I got off the plane and found my numberless. You had to walk to the shuttle, and I was trying to find it, leaning against the rails because my trunk wanted to pass out…Only I couldn't laissez passer out because I was lone and I would have died. I had to ability the fuck through information technology. So at present I'one thousand traveling with my friends then I don't die alone. We'll distribute the high. None of us volition exist too high.
That's very noble of yous. Back to the tape, is there anything you lot want people to take abroad from it—about Chicago, about the Robert Taylor homes—after listening?
Open up Mike Eagle: I desire people to retrieve more about the trauma of other humans. I desire people to recognize and live in that more, to understand and remember about that when they vote on shit, or somebody gets killed by the law. I desire them to be like, 'Damn. That must really hurt somebody effectually that state of affairs.' I want people to humanize trauma. If anybody is able to do that, then all of this self-serving art rap is worth something after all.
Is there something nigh this day and age that pushed you to accept those goals for your music?
Open up Mike Eagle: It'south about at present, man. There's a weird amount of aloofness in the earth. When a black person gets murdered by the law and some people's starting time reaction is, 'But what did the thug do?,' that's crazy. That's crazy. That is a sociopathic thought, and that'southward beingness normalized. I desire to trounce the shit out of that. I want to beat that to death with any tools at my disposal.
Practise yous think this aloofness has e'er been an American crisis and information technology was only submerged because at that place was a black president in office?
Open Mike Eagle: I think at that place's a lot of emotional manipulation going on at very high levels right now. I read a lot of shit almost Republican strategists and the shit they're on right at present in terms of data mining and trying to larn which words motivate people emotionally. They're doing this actually sophisticated gaslighting of their base of operations. They're constantly re-affirming these emotions. They create shit like Breitbart which is merely a feedback loop. If you're looking for a certain matter, this is your confirmation bias sitting in a trough. Go eat your confirmation bias, over and over again, every solar day. I think it'due south getting worse. I think people are being manipulated into feeling certain ways and it'due south getting ugly.
Practice you maintain any hope and optimism?
Open Mike Eagle: No, I'g a fucking hardcore cynic. I'm a humanist. I exercise believe in the potential of humans to be super crawly. I really practice recollect nosotros can be, simply I too believe in the potential of humans to be pieces of shit. Because I meet it all the fourth dimension.
Source: https://www.passionweiss.com/2017/10/30/open-mike-eagle-interview-2/
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