CD Review: Open Mike Eagle – “Anime, Trauma and Divorce” (2020)

One of the greatest things I love about the contemporary music scene is that there tends to be more of an openness. I’m not talking about exploring private lives and visiting everyone’s crib. It’s the idea that people can write songs about being depressed and being vulnerable without making you look weak. While there is still some emphasis on bravado in some circles, I have admired artists who have used their platforms to discuss mental health and work to break the taboos that surround it. What’s more incredible is that it’s also featured in hip-hop music quite prominently, such as on the latest album by Open Mike Eagle.

To be transparent, I discovered Open Mike Eagle several years ago when he hosted Conversation Parade, a podcast dedicated to Adventure Time. While I’m sure a marathon would prove to be sensory overload, it’s a show that always interests me every time I pop it on, admiring how it mixes 10-minute world-building with the ongoing emotional growth of Finn the Human. While it’s been close to five years since I’ve heard the show, I remember him as host mixing in his admiration for what the show is doing with his own personal accomplishments.

He’s basically one of those figures who benefits greatly from being associated with the alternative comedy circuit, just as likely to appear at Largo as he is a rap battle. What I love about being a comedy fan right now is that podcasts have made it easier for artists to support each other with cameos, raising voices like Ron Funches and Reggie Watts into people you want to pay attention to. It’s really that simple. They do the hustle, bringing their craft to an hour-long cameo. Do it enough and they become your friends. In that respect, seeing that Open Mike Eagle was on the new release sheet made me curious to finally break the seal and check out what his rap career looks like.

There’s plenty to admire about “Anime, Trauma and Divorce,” notably as an independent rapper on the verge of turning 40. As a seasoned veteran, he has collected enough accomplishments to make for an insightful look at his personal life. With this album recorded pre-pandemic, it focuses on his wild 2019, which included a short-lived but acclaimed Comedy Central series called The New Negroes. Along with other facets of his life, it felt like a good time to reflect on his own accomplishments and wonder if he’s doing good in the world. As he put it in a recent New York Times interview, he chose to hold off releasing this until October because it felt like a rebuttal to everything that happened in 2020. 

In that respect, it’s just another album that finds artists self-reflecting on their mortality. This has been a year full of personal growth through music, and it’s important to note. This isn’t going to be a bombastic celebration, at least deliberately. Whatever accomplishments can be pulled from this album are through artistic expression, needing to create songs that combine his interests into a vision of where he’s at. Much like his time on Conversation Parade would suggest, this is the confessions of a nerd, so don’t be surprised when he busts out references to Black Mirror and Eddie Pepitone. Don’t act like you haven’t been passing the time with Netflix. We all know you have.

In fact, the opening song already combines its three themes in quite an unsuspecting way. “Death Parade” is a reference to an anime that focuses on a bar where the dead congregate. While it’s a song that sounds more like domestic abuse, it makes sense to compare this experience to that, especially as it looks at the toxic cycle of trauma and how we hurt each other. Rather deliberately, Open Mike Eagle opens the album with a lengthy chorus that distills this violence to its core:

Should’ve been cool

But dude got screwed up

‘Cause shit got burned up

So he fucked her up

Then she turned big

I got chewed up

That shit fucked me up

So imma fuck you up

A kid called him

That kid grew up

And messed his kid up

He fucked her shit up

Then she fucked dude up

It all got screwed up

And that fucked me up

So imma fuck you up

It’s definitely a jarring way to open the album but gets to the heart of what everything else will be about. It’s a psychological exploration of what motivates us, questioning our value in self-esteem, and if violence can ever truly be broken. How do we follow self-restraint when there’s so much tormenting us. How does it go away? This chorus could arguably go on for eternity, and it still would feel accurate. 

Open Mike Eagle has argued that Black people need anime in their life. The idea of super-powered fantasy is something to feel self-worth. After all, positive representation in art can change an outlook on how we see the world. It’s clear that “Death Parade” is positing that he needs anime to stop the cycle of trauma, allowing the world to try and grow a new era of peace. What’s clever about his use of pop culture on this album is that it’s as much about signifying what gives him joy as it is strength. This is a story that may sound childish in this regard, but everything that follows will explain just how complex he is as an artist.

In fact, the healing begins with the second track “Headass (Idiot Shinji)” (a reference to the protagonist of Neon Genesis Evangelion) where he openly apologizes for being a “headass” and only thinking of himself. It’s an acceptance of self that makes everything that follows easier to accept, that he will break his own cycle of violence and focus on his emotions. With “Sweatpants Spiderman,” he explores divorce by focusing on his youth and his belief that the way to cure his misery is to get “tattoos, haircuts, gold chains, anime.” It’s a unique perspective, looking back from a more mature perspective, asking himself how those actions impacted his outlook on life.

It’s a melancholic album that has plenty of fun hooks, creating an atmosphere that allows everything to click along at an enjoyable length. However, this is better seen as Open Mike Eagle’s personal connection to himself. He claims that his therapist told him to write his emotions down, and you can feel the catharsis in how he crafts every note here. There is a lull into his dark personal emotion before building to some optimism, that he’ll work to make his own personal life more meaningful.

It becomes especially clear on the centerpiece song, “Everything Ends Last Year” where he focuses on recent events. It’s the fall-out of The New Negroes and various personal struggles. As he’s discussed throughout the album to this point, he’s needing to find ways to pay for rent. There are very mature adult themes here that are tied into his personal woe, and yet there is something about his TV show career that feels crushing like his dream came true and immediately collapsed:

We tried starting a movement, we tried starting a record label

Our friendships have been ruined

Good brothers in arguments about money, data and music

We created illusions, then the fighting went public

And frightened all the consumers

And it ended (just fell the fuck apart)

It's October and I'm tired

Again, this isn’t about 2020 and yet everything about personal failure feels like the anthem of this year. We want to believe that following our dreams will lead to something substantial, and that can’t always be true. This is followed by one of the more comedic and deliberately pop-culture based songs with “The Black Mirror Episode.” Even if it’s just reciting various plots that feel reminiscent of the hit series, it makes sense that he’s symbolizing this as his personal identity crisis, that he thought that TV would solve his problems, and instead it’s turned his life into a nightmare. How does he escape this trap? 

That may explain why he shifts the album from confessional to crisis straight to “WTF is Self Care.” For the remainder of the album, he decides to focus on ways to better himself. It’s a song that references a change in dietary consumption, getting massages, and finding ways to not give into your own personal demons. It’s some of the best advice that he gives on the whole album, suggesting that a lot needs to change in order to make your life better. It’s as much an issue of psychological as well as physical here.

Plain and simple “Anime, Trauma and Divorce” is an album that explores all of those themes in a way that connects with audiences while understanding their emotional impact on yourself. There is a need to find your own superpower and better your own life. For some, “Death Parade” is as far as they’ll ever get. For Open Mike Eagle, he wants to get to “WTF is Self Care” and take those risks to better his life.

As far as production goes, the album reminds me a lot of early albums by Childish Gambino, a’la “I Am Not a Rapper” era. While Open Mike Eagle has more of maturity than the rambunctiousness of Donald Glover, it’s the way that everything has this off-kilter vibe, with the productions sounding a bit unpolished and the hooks (and references) sometimes being as telling of how outside the conventional hip-hop career they are as a backing track. It’s also just the willingness to be open while throwing in movie and TV references, reflecting how art is used as a comfort away from the world’s problems. Open Mike Eagle feels like he’s ready to confront his demons, and by the end, he’s rather happy about his outcome.

For the most part, this is a record you listen to if you need some guidance and help in life. It’s one there to encourage people to not give into vicious cycles and try to find optimism in the world. Don’t lose your head because of economic struggles or your dreams not fully working out. Tomorrow is another day to try again. Open Mike Eagle clearly has come to terms with a lot in his life. While there may still be more hurt in there, he’s at least begun to journey into a better future. I hope he gets there. I hope this country does as well. All that we need is to practice some self-care.