In October, some weeks before I met MIKE for our conversation on the Lower East Side, the New York rapper and producer was holed up for 13 hours in an interrogation room in Japan. He’d just finished playing what he described as one of the greatest shows of his life at Tokyo’s Frame Gallery. Feeling good, he and his crew got into a G-Wagon and made their way to the afterparty. But as they walked to the spot from where they parked, they were stopped randomly by police.
“All the Japanese homies is like, ‘What made y’all even stop us?’ They're not really saying shit. But I’m just like, They can check my bag, I know I don't got shit…” MIKE tells me, smiling. It’s storming hard in Manhattan, and it feels like the whole neighborhood chose to stay warm at the seafood spot where MIKE and I dine. Our bodies are accordioned into a table all the way in the back, waiters whizzing by us with platters of prawns.
As MIKE tells it, an officer flipped his backpack and shook it, and several weed crumbs fell out—less than a gram he didn’t know was there. He was then held in jail indefinitely. He expected to be there at least a month; his lawyer got him out in 10 days.
“The whole time I was just reading hella books,” MIKE says. “I literally thought if they had me in here for 30 days, which was what the embassy was saying, I’m ’bout to come out on Malcolm X shit!”
Over a beer and a plate of expensive fish, MIKE can laugh about the incident now, but it’s a scary reminder of the perils of touring. The 26-year-old is a prolific performer, rarely taking a break from the road. He’s fully independent and runs his own label, 10k, so playing shows is a must for promotion and revenue. In early 2024, for instance, MIKE embarked on a massive three-month tour across Europe and the United States. And, a few days after we finished this interview, he headed to Australia for a handful of dates.
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.”
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.
My homie from England, I feel like he was one of the first people to really put me on to what’s going on out there. Jadasea, he always would talk about it, even rap about it in songs and stuff. So that was kind of my introduction to what was really going on. And then, seeing the videos online and seeing people doing actions and stuff. Even people that were fans of me would be reaching out like, “Yo, I’m from Palestine.” Same shit that’s going on in Ethiopia with Tigray and stuff. People that are really from the places like, “Yo, there’s crazy shit going on,” keeping me hip. Even my friend Sideshow, who is Tigrayan, he is putting me onto those things at the same time. I feel like it just hits different when it feels closer.
What we don’t be taking into consideration is what’s going on over there is also happening here, even if it’s not looking the same way. As a world, we’re gonna have to grieve those atrocious things. And not to be on some super dark conspiracy shit, [but] there’s so much shit that’s just to desensitize from the world aching right now.
It’s usually just free writing. I feel like the meaning kinda comes after, especially the more I spend time with it. How I kinda see it is I was raised in a religious, spiritual household. My mom is super spiritual. We used to go to White Garment church, which is Christianity but lowkey some weird division of Christianity. I used to go to church and just watch people catch the Holy Ghost. You would stay at church overnight, they’d turn the lights off, and everybody would be praying in the dark. And you would hear people catching the Holy Ghost [laughs].
Terrified.
I just think it’s a lot about being a vehicle and just having a relationship with something that’s bigger than you. I’m not gonna lie, after my mom had passed or whatever, she’s lowkey the main person that I pray to. Before shows, if I pray, I’m always praying to my mom.
“25 years… we finally made it today. We gonna dance with the people and we gonna make them smile.” And then I’ll be like, “Thank you so much, thank you for watching over me. Thank you for watching over me and my friends.” Then I'll pray for my sisters and my brother, my whole family.
I still get that feeling. I try and make the moment super intentional. I feel like, for me, sometimes, there’s times where I still get on stage and I’ll fuck everything up and forget all my lyrics—I be sick. But that shit puts me in a mode where I’m like, this isn’t just an opportunity or a one-time, it’s an ongoing journey for myself.
There are certain parts of a set where I need to channel my ancestors. In the sense of praying and calling out for people’s assistance, I definitely keep that for live performances. It’s the one place lowkey where… it’s like where I really have control over stuff. I guess the whole thing of being an MC, or master of ceremonies, it’s the one place where I feel like the leader. It’s an important experience for me.
I recorded it all at home. I’ll work on shit whenever I have free time, go live life, come back and just record. A lot of it [was recorded] after tour, in the summer. Some of it is more recent. Some of it is from right after Burning Desire. It’s really been like a year.
I really love trying to build worlds in my music. You ever listen to something and you’re like, “I'm in a whole ’nother place that I necessarily wouldn’t be on the regular?” Lowkey, when I listen to Playboi Carti, I be feeling like that, which is outrageous, but it’s really cool to me. So whenever I'm making my own beats, it’s me trying to emphasize this is part of me building that infrastructure, this world that I kinda present or whatever.
DOOM is my favorite rapper. I learned how to build worlds from studying his music. You know when they say “acquired taste”? I had to acquire the taste, and I didn’t know where it was gonna take me.
I heard “ALL CAPS” randomly on YouTube. That’s why I do MIKE in all caps. I couldn’t really get into what he was saying on the track, but I was like, Bro, this beat is fire as fuck. My first rap song is over “ALL CAPS.”
I was in ninth [grade]. I must have been 13, 14. And I remember I recorded it and I thought it sucked so bad. I went to sleep on the couch and I just let it play, mad as fuck. I woke up and my sister had came home. She was listening to the song. She was like, “Yo who is this, this sounds fire.” I’m like, “Bro, it's me!” And then I was like, “OK, maybe this is kinda hard.” And I just kept making music and shit.
My other thing [about DOOM]… I think there’s a lineage. I’m not saying I’m a part of the lineage, [but] I spoke to Thebe [Kgositsile aka Earl Sweatshirt] about this, too. Listening to good music, it kinda takes me down the rabbit hole of being interested in creating my own.
I’m sure with Thebe, it was about him being a fan of somebody else. I’m sure with DOOM, it was about him being a fan of somebody else. I know that he didn’t know that [he] would be MF DOOM. I know Thebe didn’t think he would be that. Somebody is gonna hear the next thing and be like, Yo this is changing my life. I need to figure out what this means and pull up to their shows. And they’re gonna do that for somebody else.
That’s why I be so dedicated. DOOM is one of those people. Even Thebe, that's my brother, that’s my homie, but I gotta give him his flowers. He opened up this shit. He did what he was supposed to do. And that’s what allowed me to be able to do what I’m supposed to do.
[It was] literally, like, my dream. I remember I used to be so jealous, like, when niggas would get the DOOM collab. You know who I’m talking about [laughs].
My homies usually be putting me on. Like, if I go to the Alchemist’s studio, I’ll be in there really listening to real hip-hop. And I be feeling bad because I can tell this is monumental.
Vodka, from Philly, I used to study his shit O.D. There used to be days me and Naavin, we'd be at his crib, smacked as fuck, “Throw on that Vodka, bruh!” I’d literally be drunk as shit, [and] I’m like, “Yeah I’m about to go home and go right to the studio, bro.” I think I’m in a place where I’m usually a student, for real. I’m just grateful to be taking it all in.
I feel like we intertwine in crazy ways. I think when I first realized it is when I played a show in Atlanta, in 2021, with Bear1Boss. That’s when I started realizing, Oh, this shit is real. That’s how you can get a Niontay; he’s a mix of these different worlds. When I had went to Atlanta for the first time, ’Tay was the first to introduce me to everybody in Atlanta. He really visiting both these worlds because lowkey they’re both existing at the [same] time, and we’re lowkey kind of doing the same shit, but it’s just in a different type of music—and not even really listening to different types of music! “Southside,” by Duwap Kaine… 2019, we were running that shit the fuck up. Thebe used to play that shit at the end of every set when I was on tour with him.
Even as I get older and shit, I realize, too, that everybody is kind of just connected in different ways. We locked into what y’all doing, y’all locked in with us, and we can kind of present together. I love jewelry and fast cars and all that shit, too. It’s just cool ’cause I feel like you intertwine and you get these new evolutions to this shit.
Lowkey, I knew some homies that was working with them kinda at the beginning, so I always kinda been a fan. I remember one time, I ran into [Surf Gang producer Evilgiane], maybe Lower East Side, just like, “Ay, I fuck with your shit.” He was, like, showing hella love and shit. And then he hit me up one time to work on shit. We linked up one time, we did one, and then I met Harrison. But I had lowkey been knew Harrison from years ago, like 2016. Me and Harrison were kinda rekindling our friendship or whatever, and just started making hella music together. Then we was in the studio for a week in L.A. I was meeting every producer I think I’ve ever listened to through Harrison.
My homie Na-Kel [Smith] pulled up; Thebe pulled up; the homie [Zelooperz] was there. I met this nigga Xaviersobased there. It was hella people in there. Cashcache!, he’s one of my favorite producers. The shit him and BoofPaxkMooky got is tough.
Yeah, I think we was planning on calling it Pompeii. The reason we was calling it Pompeii was niggas was so clapped in the studio, the homies was just in crazy positions but, like, frozen. It’ll probably end up coming out next year or some shit. Just whenever it feels right. Gonna start performing that shit live.
It’s one of those things where, when I was younger, if your community is a community, it’ll be a community. Nobody has to say anything about it. When people start saying stuff about it, it’s because they are trying to capitalize off the idea. Community is something personal.
How I be knowing that people don't really care about community is, if everybody you’re talking about is a musician, you don’t know the community. Where’s the homies that are making the flyers? Where’s the homies that are making the merch and doing the videos? Where’s the homies that don’t do shit? They just pull up to the show! Majority of the time, those are the legends, I’m not gonna lie. Those be the people you wanna talk to ’cause they’ll really tell you this is really what the community is. I don’t do shit.
It’s kind of one of those things of like, it could be here one day and be gone tomorrow, bro, cliche as it is. My homie, we always talk about your world being destroyed, and how when your world gets destroyed, it’s not the worst thing; it’s just about rebuilding it back up. I think with that line, “The prize isn't much, but the price is abundant,” if you're doing this shit to get something out of it, there’s, like, no point. You literally gotta do it because this is what you really feel like you need to do. Or maybe if you don’t give a fuck, and it is just about what the prize is, you know that this is the prize, but it’s not gonna last too long. I’ve been in places where I’ve been more enamored by the prize than what it takes to get to it. That’s just part of being human. The more that you’re able to forgive yourself, the more comfortable you’ll be able to, like—I don't know, I think it’s all about being fluid. Not letting things strike you too hard.
Videos by Aaron Krepack
