Touring, of course, offers the highest of highs—thousands of fans chanting MIKE’s quiet anthems in communion—but there are still the shit-shows like what happened in Japan. “Even when I was locked up in Japan, I kept thinking about how, a month ago, I was in Marseilles on a rocky beach, and now I’m just in a gray sweatsuit in Japan,” MIKE says. In person, he’s as soft-spoken and attentive as he is on his records. He speaks in slow, meandering passages, sometimes taking big pauses to find the exact words he wants to use.
Reflecting again on the arrest, MIKE and his manager, Naavin Karimbux, chalk it up to little more than “showbiz.” It’s what they shrug their shoulders and mutter whenever some crazy shit happens to them on the road.
It’s also the name of MIKE’s new album, out January 31 via 10k. Alongside a full tape with Surf Gang, tentatively titled Pompeii, it’s one of two projects he’s planning to drop in 2025. Sonically in conversation with his unmoored 2023 record Burning Desire, Showbiz! introduces harder sounds to the moth-eaten samples MIKE has kneaded into worlds. A good example of his evolution comes with the rainforest pads on “Belly 1,” produced by Harrison of Surf Gang, which gives MIKE’s voice an urgency that’s suddenly not far off from the baritone of Connecticut underground favorite RealYungPhil.
The album also makes me think of the late MF DOOM. Like DOOM’s zaniest work, Showbiz! coils funky samples into loops that groove. The scuffed keyboard of “Man in the Mirror” will make your shoulders shimmy involuntarily, as will “Artist of the Century.” On that track, MIKE triumphantly one-takes a verse full of hardened wisdom. As he gets to the end, he pauses mid-verse to catch his breath, then utters what may be the thesis of independent rap: “The prize isn’t much, but the price is abundant.”
Pitchfork: The most distinct memory I have of seeing you, in 2024, was in Chicago when you played a show at the Metro. What I remember most vividly about your set was the last song, “Closing Credits,” where you draped the Palestinian flag around your body. What’s your perspective on how hip-hop has engaged with the movement for Palestine’s liberation?
MIKE: I feel like hip-hop is in kind of a weird place. ’Cause when you think about it, the way you call it that, in particular, is like a community—the community of hip-hop. But, as of recent, it’s been hard to visualize that thing as a community that everybody’s on the same page about. I think what I’ve been noticing is everybody is learning at different paces. If this was back in the ’80s or something, there would probably be a lot more support from the hip-hop community, but I just feel like people are still figuring it out. I think just ’cause it’s a different time. People are getting put onto information, but also niggas don’t even be knowing. A lot of what I peep now, especially through social media, is that people like to be like, “I don’t have no real opinion on anything.” I don’t know, I think it just makes it easier to kind of not stand for nothing. But I feel like what hip-hop is, if people really think about where the shit comes from, it’s just anti-establishment. And then, if you think about the fight, it’s definitely a different fight but I think it’s a fight that we can familiarize ourselves with. I think also as an artist in general, your word has to mean something or stand for something. It’s just very important to me.
