It’s Just a Warning: Open Mike Eagle and Oddisee Offer Prayers For the American Religion

The best producer and best rapper on Mello Music Group form like Zoroaster.
By    March 3, 2015

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Torii MacAdams will pay for his children’s college tuition by eBay auctions of Tommy Wright III’s hospital wristbands.

Death to the personal brand. Burn effigies of do-nothing celebrities. Enrich yourself and develop your pre-frontal cortex. Listen to Open Mike Eagle’s “Celebrity Reduction Prayer,” a jazzy, lighthearted takedown of Us Weekly hysteria that evolves into something more urgent and unhinged. Celebrity is, in the words of OME, “the American religion” –it’s hard to disagree when even the most avowed reality TV haters have passing knowledge of Kardashian hagiography.

There’s plenty of “enlightened” rappers, happy to mumble self-reification platitudes into the ever-widening gyre, but few who actually poke at something approaching truth, and fewer who do it with élan. This is what makes Open Mike Eagle special. He can rap “You’re not my moms, you’re not my father, you’re not my food, you’re not my water,” and it doesn’t feel like he’s ramming a Talib Kweli-endorsed frankincense cone up each of your nostrils. As always, Eagle’s beat selection is superb. Oddisee 70’s lounge piano riffs are distinct and warm, but leave Eagle’s emotive voice room to operate. “Celebrity Reduction Prayer” is the latest in Eagle’s near-unimpeachable run, but he’s still wildly underrated. Maybe he should date Kylie Jenner.



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