Chicago-born, Los Angeles-based rapper Open Mike Eagle is a seemingly inexhaustible font of laugh-out-loud one-liners, and he delivers as always on his latest album, Component System With the Auto Reverse (on his own Auto Reverse label). You need to be careful drinking anything while listening to it, lest uncomfortable snorking ensue when the rapper gets to the best lines in “Peak Lockdown Raps”: “I got a discount code for therapy / I hit go and got Rickrolled, apparently / It was a big blow.” But funny as he is, fans don’t just tune in for the laffs. Inspired by the likes De La Soul and They Might Be Giants, Mike writes loopy gags that float and bob and tie themselves together into surprisingly thoughtful reveries on aging, mental illness, disappointment, and hope. His flow feels laid-back even as he chews up syllables at a rapid clip—as if he’s a stoned nerd who almost apologetically has to get out everything on his mind. On “79th and Stony Island,” he starts musing on watching the Kanye West documentary Jeen-Yuhs, goes on to cheerfully explain he’s got “memories like flesh wounds,” and finishes up by listening to his son laughing. Throughout the album, Mike weaves his thoughts on COVID, racism, and our bleak political landscape in and out of pop-culture references and goofball nonsense—which he uses less as distractions than as ways to hold firm to his humanity under threat. “It’ll be endless, I will fight you every day,” Mike croons on the hook of “I’ll Fight You.” It’s a joke, but he also means it.
Open Mike Eagle’s A Tape Called Component System With the Auto Reverse is available through Bandcamp.
