I speak to Brooklyn’s MIKE while he’s lounging in The Netherlands before another show on his ongoing Somebody Fine Me Trouble tour, where he’ll traverse Europe and then the United States through May. He tells me that he’s enjoying his time overseas so far. “We hit a lot of places I never performed at,” he says. “It’s always cool going to different places and [seeing] what the younger crowd looks like in certain countries.” But he tells me it hasn’t been completely smooth sailing. He says that tourists have to take their time to find good food overseas, bemoaning “a night where niggas was just eating unlimited veggie hot dogs.” He notes, “hella shit is banned out here that’s not banned in America that be making the food taste good as fuck.” “We was in the whole Scandinavia,” he says. “I ain’t even know that it’s just a region. That shit was ridiculous [but] cool. They hella strict about weed. Yesterday, we dodged the G Co.” “What’s a G Co?,” I ask. “The German RICO,” he jokes. “They were trying to get us out of here, no cap. [But] we back in the weed land, The Netherlands.” I first saw MIKE in a pretty cramped space in Bushwick in 2019. I didn’t know much about him at the time, but his hold on the crowd, who danced and rapped almost every word with him, made me realize I needed to quickly get familiar. At that point, he was two years into a prolific career that at just 25 has put him on many people’s short list for the best rapper out. When I talked to Earl Sweatshirt and The Alchemist last year about VOIR DIRE, where MIKE raps on “Sentry,” Earl called him “incredible” and “one of my favorite rappers ever.” The Alchemist called him “one of the great ones.” He has a knack for dense lyricism packed with reflections on grief, growth, mental health, and all the other permutations of being a Black person in a white supremacist society. He was born in New Jersey, spent time in London, came back to Philadelphia, and then settled back in Brooklyn, where, as the recently-released Pinball affirms, he cofounded the sLUms collective and became an “Underground King.” He’s lived many lives and seems to have a different set of gems from each of them. Editor’s picks The drumless soul sample has permeated hip-hop as of late, and MIKE, a rapper and producer, is often regarded as a modern flagbearer of that sound. However, the MIKE experience is broader than the confines of categorization. He expressed throughout our interview that he refuses to be relegated to any scene or subgenre. Enter Pinball with producer Tony Seltzer, where they build on prior collaborations with an 11-track dose of MIKE getting off myriad flows on smooth trap-driven production. Throughout the 11-track project, he trades in muddy soul loops for entrancing synth melodies on “100 Gecs” and “Reminiscing” with Jay Critch, who MIKE lauds as one of his GOATs. He also trades bars with Earl Sweatshirt and Tony Shhnow on “On God,” a record that came after an Atlanta night where he, Earl, and friends got lit at Hooters and briefly marched in a pro-Palestine demonstration before heading to a packed studio session. Throughout our talk, he seemed easygoing, and you could see how he’d be willing to let life happen, assured that his powerful pen could shape the experience into something riveting. I talked to MIKE about “controlling the narrative” as an artist, his Young World festival, and how a wild night out can inspire great music. The interview, lightly edited for clarity, is below. How are you feeling about the reception to Pinball?It’s cool. I’m not going to lie, I was nervous because I was like, “yo, I’ll be listening to this type of music and I got hella songs that I feel go in this way.” But sometimes fans be so hooked onto you being one type of person, or being one type of artist that at a certain point I’m like “damn, not my fans bullying me into thinking I could only do one style of rapping.” Related But then when it dropped and everybody was so accepting of it, shit had me hella gassed. [It] also opened my eyes to bigger possibilities of how comfortable niggas could be [on] any side of hip hop. How intentional are you about evading the box that people put a lyricist from New York in?I’ve been trying to do it. I always try and put something [on my projects] that’s a little bit different from the regular boom bap or loop type of thing. On Disco!, I had the song “At Thirst Sight with Assia.” That’s more some dancey kind of shit. Even now it’s me trying to step towards more of a more turnt instrumental type vibe. But I strategically put it in the music in a way where people are like, “oh, that was exciting for that quick little moment.” I’ve always been a big fan of different types of music. I have a song on May God Bless Your Hustle from 2017, the outro of “Rock Bottom/Peace To Come.” The chorus is inspired by a Young Gleesh song from back in the day. When I was working on God Bless Your Hustle, that’s the year Tay K had got locked up — or it might’ve been midway through the race type shit, but niggas used to listen to Tay K “The Race” so much. The energy of that low key inspired the album. As an artist, do you think the notion of genre has value in music?I think for artists sometimes it can be annoying and almost restricting because it stops you from wanting to go into other bags. It could be a risky thing. A lot of people are doing this music shit to put money in their pockets. So sometimes you might try something new and fuck your whole shit up. [Laughs] It’s a crazy thing. But sometimes [parasocial relationships] be happening with the supporters where you feel like, “I can’t [change the sound they know me for].” But these niggas don’t necessarily know you, they know of you. They supporting what you doing, that shit shouldn’t pull you away from trying out new things. I think the more niggas loosen away from that shit and treat music as a whole, you’ll be surprised at what collaborations could come to life through shit like that, or what little discoveries could possibly come to life during that shit. Even working with Tony helped me find out so many different pockets that I was unaware of in my own music [and] in my own production that I’m like, “All right, cool. Maybe I can incorporate this without steering too far into one place or the other.” What are some of the biggest moments on the album that speak to those new pockets?Shit like “Underground Kingz,” “On God,” “Lethal Weapon,” just the bounce of shit. “Underground Kingz” felt close to home. It showed me how shit could work. Or even on a lot of the songs, I like using autotune on some of those. And I thought about using autotune for such a long time. This shit gave me the confidence to try and see “Does autotune only got to exist on this type of beat or can it exist on different types of instruments?” How much do you think fan expectation played into you dropping it as a surprise album and not wanting to have a grand build-up to it?I think it’s like a half-and-half thing. I do come from dropping shit randomly without the full rollout. But then it was also one of those things where I’m like, all right. I think people create these funny fantasies about rappers. I didn’t want to get caught in other people’s fantasies and [want to] be able to portray what I wanted to portray. Which I thought was cool with Tony, because we worked on the project and usually I’m doing my own production for projects, but Tony still allowed me to feel so much a part of the music and the art. Even with Vinny Fanta doing the artwork for the project. We was sitting down with him going through what style made sense. Even…
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