Open Mike Eagle is nothing if not eclectic. Too cool to be a product of the blog era, backpack rapper boom of the early 2010s, yet lacking the cinematic, coked-out raps of what Griselda once was. The space he occupies in the underground is truly his own. I don’t mean this as a slight, or a much feared mark of ‘lyrical spiritual’ rhymes – quite the opposite. But Open Mike’s raps in some sense feel academic, almost literary at times. Not too unlike Earl Sweatshirt, he often delves into deeply abstract, stream-of-consciousness style musings.
Sometimes I find myself thinking that if the instrumentals he writes over were to never end, that Open Mike himself might never stop rapping. It’s clear he always has something interesting to say. His collaborator on DOOMED!, Kenny Segal, has a legacy now forever tied to the unparalleled Billy Woods. Both Maps and Hiding Place remain two of the finest abstract hip hop records of the past ten years, and both were a direct consequence of Segal’s crate digging excellence. Yet he showcases on this record that he’s far from a one trick pony.
Both Segal and Eagle don’t compromise on this album, but coalesce. They feel, in equal capacity, like Kenny Segal beats and Open Mike raps. Neither is less than the other. There’s also a wide spread of sounds on the record. From end to end, Segal’s beats hardly put a foot wrong. They truly feel like individual labours of love – brimming with personality that they frankly need just to keep up with the MC on top of them. Open Mike sings on the smooth, ‘Trying To Remember What I Aimed At’. A track later, over a campy, MF Doom-style instrumental, he laces a bit of whimsy into his rhymes: “I used to look out the window / And see my face for new / Back when he used to sing Imagine Dragons and Panic at the Disco”.
There’s a wonderful amount of range, and the features do a good job of highlighting what makes the tracklist so exciting. Hemlocke Ernst, better known as Samuel T. Herring (of Future Islands fame) offers the album its own unique soul inflection, though he raps as opposed to singing. While the aforementioned Billy Woods does what he does, and shrouds his track in complete darkness. ‘She Swear I’m Colourblind’ could very well be a Woods song, fit with horns and glistening chimes, though Open Mike proves once again that his versatility is his greatest asset
DOOMED! shines, through its opulent-sounding beats, and intimate rhymes. The only question which remains for the duo now, is if this album officially marks the beginning of a collaborative partnership for the two, or if it’s simply a fruitful pitstop.
