When we spoke, he teared up while talking about his late grandmother, whose devotion to Christ inspired the album’s churchly sound. On various tracks, Mike raps tenderly about lost love, his mother’s death in 2017, and the fear of failure that has long propelled him. But much of its subject matter is autobiographical and vulnerable. But this album gives it all to them in one, and it helps you understand I’m simply a human being.”įusing the sound of holy choirs with militaristic beats, volcanic bass, and Mike’s booming voice, Michael hardly represents a softening in fervor. These weird groups of people like you for different reasons. “They see you as … Killer Mike the liberal … They see you as Killer Mike the pro– Second A guy. “They see you as half superhero of Run the Jewels,” he said, referring to the public’s perception of himself. After four acclaimed albums and many raucous concerts, Mike feels secure in his legacy as part of “arguably one of the best rap groups ever.” But he believes that the time has come to reassert his own story, and reconcile his somewhat fragmented image. The early 2010s brought a new start when he partnered with the Brooklyn emcee El-P to form Run the Jewels, whose rude and righteous anthems revived the spirit of Rage Against the Machine. In the early 2000s, Mike was best known as an associate of Atlanta’s signature rap duo, OutKast. The new album is partly a dispatch from our ever-exhausting culture wars over ideological purity: One groaner labels his critics’ “woke-ass shit” as “broke-ass shit.” But it is far fresher and more interesting as a memoir of a category-scrambler, a radical-by-reputation’s tribute to the “deeply southern, traditional, Black family” he told me he was raised in. Though many of his songs envision violent revolution, he went viral for asking protesters not to burn buildings during the George Floyd protests, leading some commentators to accuse him of playing to too many sides.
Last year, a HuffPost column referred to the rapper as “more politically dangerous than Kanye West” because he’d praised Kemp’s outreach to Black constituents while the incumbent governor supported policies that Democrats say make it harder for those constituents to vote. That flexibility has, at times, invited controversy. “You don’t have to pick a side with me,” the 48-year-old said over Zoom, amid tokes from a joint.
Years ago, he renounced the Christian faith he was raised with, but his first solo album in a decade, Michael-whose cover is a childhood photo of Mike, adorned with devil horns and a halo-is laden with gospel choirs and biblical references. He has campaigned for Bernie Sanders and rapped about celebrating Ronald Reagan’s death he also supports gun ownership and speaks warmly about Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp.
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