by Justin Davis (@AnkhDeLillo)
“With no hope for the future, and no idea of how to get there…” The first words of rapper MIKE’s new album Burning Desire drop us into ambiguity — as so much of his work does. MIKE is one of the best rapper-producers to come out of the underground in recent years, a generational talent who’s broadened the horizon for experimental hip-hop since the days of his [sLUms] collective in the mid-2010s. Deeply introspective and empathetic, eccentric and soulful, sonically and tonally rich: MIKE’s music lets you comfortably swim at its surface while rewarding close listeners with moments of heart-wrenching poetry and texture.
The past year has been an especially busy one in his already-prolific career: from his Young World music festival in Brooklyn to his independent label 10K, which has dropped standout projects from Niontay, Sideshow, Anysia Kim and Jadasea. Last month saw the release of Faith Is A Rock, a breezy, contemplative collab album with The Alchemist and fellow New Yorker Wiki. His last solo record was Beware of the Monkey — released this past December — a lean exploration of the complex emotional palette behind his success and personal growth. MIKE has described that record as “a fight to be in the moment, to be present,” and Burning Desire feels like an extension of that impulse.
While almost all of MIKE’s solo projects have dropped on the summer or winter solstice, this one arrived on Friday the 13th: an apt moment for an album whose cover references slasher flicks. There was almost no promotion beforehand, either, except for billboards placed in New York and London — two cities that are vital to MIKE’s life and artistry — and a website with snippets, images of masks, and the lyrics to the album’s intro. Supported by guest features from both sides of the Atlantic, the 24 songs on Burning Desire show MIKE at a new artistic peak, his voice as urgent as it’s ever been.
MIKE has spoken in interviews about his interest in worldbuilding — for example, he’s dropped a number of projects under his producer name, dj blackpower — and Burning Desire feels more speculative than many of his past releases. The intro, narrated by Klein, frames it as the soundtrack to “a dark romantic horror with comedic twists.” This horror story revolves around a mask carver from the Dan tribe in West Africa, ridiculed for his mediocre work until a new mask mysteriously appears in his home, prettier than any he’s made himself. In a culture where ceremonial masks are seen as manifestations of spirits, this new one — depicted on the cover — embodies “a fire deeply rooted in revenge and devastation, masked with an intricate beauty.” The music video for “What U Say U Are” shows someone following MIKE through the city with an axe, killing the people he leaves behind until it’s revealed that the MIKE and the killer are one and the same — “Michael Myers but with dreads,” as MIKE raps.
That aesthetic engagement with Africa is a vital undertone throughout the record. A vocal sample at the end of “Zap!” invites us to consider this idea: “now when I look at these objects, I can see Africa. Stick with me, and maybe you can see Africa in these objects too.” This isn’t new territory for MIKE, whose family has split time between the United States, the UK, and Nigeria. His late mother’s Yoruba language shows up in song titles and vocal clips throughout his catalog, and the cover of his 2018 EP Black Soap is designed to look like packaging for the popular West African product. But as Burning Desire straddles “the borders of Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire” and MIKE’s current home in New York, it pushes us to consider the complex place that African art and spirituality occupy in America’s cultural imaginary. There’s tension in that connection that comes from “the curse of being on Western land” — to quote MIKE from a 2020 interview with rapper Sideshow — and deploying the imagery of ceremonial masks as part of a slasher flick highlights that tension in a fascinating way.
As each MIKE project checks in on his life, we get running through lines about the forces that continue to shape him: like his late mother Anuoluwapo Abefe Majekodunmi Akinboboye, whose voice appears at the end of “Billboards.” We get glimpses of siblings, friends, and romantic encounters; moments of taking and shirking advice; anecdotes from concerts and studios. On “REAL LOVE,” fashionspitta performs a tender poem called “May I Love You Here Today?” as the instrumental floods over her voice. Burning Desire feels especially concerned with how MIKE’s creative shifts are tied to his personal shifts — and the way those shifts change how he relates to the people around him. He reminds us that personal transformation is always a messy process, full of doubts and barriers — “lightning, thunder, summer of pain,” he raps on the title track, “fogs and rain and clouds cluttered the way.”
MIKE’s lyricism has always been full of complex emotions, but on Burning Desire, we’re faced with emotional, spiritual, and social collisions. Although these songs are playful, wistful, reflective, and tender, we also hear MIKE at some of his most brazen and confident. “Ho-Rizin” is a reflection on newfound financial windfalls — “flying-bitches-out money, hide-it-in-the-couch money” — over squelching synth lines that could fit on a vaporwave record. MIKE explores the blessings and pitfalls of steady income, while recounting the hard work it took to find that stability: “I was used to couch jumping, sleeping on the ground fussy / I ain’t peep that doubt was lowkey teaching me ‘bout alchemy.”
Several songs here reference people who run with his influence without giving credit (“you could imitate us, but we never get a ‘thank you’”), and self-care as a means of self-defense — like “plz don’t cut my wings,” a highlight featuring Earl Sweatshirt. As layers of strings slowly cascade like glaciers, MIKE speaks to how unresolved emotions can linger in the process of healing (“problems never resolved, they follow you on the walk back / my mommy be in my thoughts, my body be in a tall glass”), while Earl paints a picture of letting go while moving forward: “arm’s length distance, we never too close to hit / they never could go the stretch, I’m balancing on a limb.”
In much of his past work, MIKE’s been unafraid to keep his voice low in the mix, letting his instrumentals completely overtake him. Here, however, he feels solidly front and center, even in the album's most abrasive moments — like “African Sex Freak Fantasy,” where he jostles with the track’s ambient synths, piercing growls, and fuzzy, warped percussion. Throughout Burning Desire we see his playbook of intricate, nimble flows expand: like Danny Brown or Freddie Gibbs, he can comfortably navigate beats that would make most rappers sound clunky.
Almost all of this record is self-produced — except for contributions from GAWD and Laron — and we can hear MIKE continue to hone his stylistic trademarks. On the one hand, he consistently has a knack for earworm samples, bottling moments of wavy funk and ambience, playful jazz, and lush soul. On “Zap!,” for example, lively horn stabs smash into bits of rippling keys, like MIKE was shoving the track’s parts into each other. A colorful synth line squirms over high-pitched vocal samples on “Golden Hour,” making a perfect canvas for a long, playful verse from Larry June. These beats pop with little flourishes: like the drifting wail of horns on “98,” the velvety R&B of “THEY DON’T STOP IN THE RAIN,” and the patiently climbing vibraphone on “should be!,” which features vocal harmonies from Crumb frontwoman Lila Ramani.
On the other hand, the glitchy, stuttering chops and loops that defined much of his early production feel more focused: samples abruptly change speeds, cut into static, interrupt themselves and jumpstart. At the start of “Do you Believe?,” the instrumental and MIKE’s verse speed up together until they find a comfortable pocket for his chest-puffing. On “Mussel Beach,” with El Cousteau and Niontay, we hear the music rewind, change pitch and then reverse, spitting the rappers’ verses out like gum. Over its dark, pensive groove, Cousteau and Niontay’s light, nimble voices sound especially brash — “it’s the way that I speak, make a motherfucker believe in whatever I’m doing,” says Cousteau — while MIKE matches them with a moody drawl: “they talking tough, I be playing along / cause I know if you bluff, I won’t take it as far.”
Compared to Beware of the Monkey and his 2021 record Disco!, Burning Desire feels especially dense and serpentine. It’s also some of MIKE’s strongest work yet, a testament to how much he’s refined his production and voice to become even more potent and sharp. With two months left in the year and barely any warning, he’s dropped one of 2023’s most memorable albums — inviting us to walk through the fire with him.