Successful musicians often hit a point in their careers where the more universal feelings that fueled their early work, like desperation and hunger and a need to prove yourself, fall away as they instead reflect on the alienation of fame and the touring life. Open Mike Eagle isn’t a household name yet but his career […]
Hella Personal Film Festival is a Standout Work in Both Open Mike Eagle and Paul White’s Careers
The biggest complaint about the weird, abstract California indie hip hop scene is that it’s way too fucking obtuse and heady, forfeiting swagger in favor of a constant pursuit of higher word counts and more jarring cadences. I never really agreed with the assessment of the scene as difficult and unwieldy but I could understand […]
Raps for When It’s Just You and the Abyss: Open Mike Eagle’s A Special Episode of is Sincerity as Art
There is a new meta-suicidal Drake mixtape out and you’ve probably heard it or at least heard the pundit brigade’s thoughts on it. It’s got a cover that, to paraphrase a remark by The Roots, looks like it was written by one of the Chick-Fil-A cows but beyond that it’s another salvo in hip hop’s […]
Video of the Week: Open Mike Eagle “A History of Modern Dance”
A couple years ago I was forced to revisit Spike Lee’s School Daze as a part of a feature series on the director. I don’t know if you’ve seen it but it’s a pretty bizarre work, even from a director who gets pigeonholed for his gritty realism despite the fact that he has made a number […]