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Art contributor Advaita Sood shares an unforgettable experience watching Open Mike Eagle perform their latest album live in Chicago.
For the average person, the phrase “rap show” can conjure up images of teens and 20-somethings ready to mosh and go crazy. But the scene, which took place in the performance space of Beat his kitchen minutes before his Eagle’s set at the open mic, looked like a mixer for divorced parents. The crowd consisted mostly of middle aged and older people. That’s right — ready to bop to the old-school beats and rhymes of your youth.
And why shouldn’t it? on the 2022 album Component system with auto-reverse (CSAR), the 42-year-old hip-hop artist rediscovers his identity with a soundtrack that combines retro boom-bap rap beats (a 90s production style with prominent bass and snare drums) and a more contemporary sound. To do.This new and old reconciliation permeates CSAR, With humor and acerbic wit, Eagle ponders both past experience and current absurdity. What Eagle creates is not a song, but his two- to three-minute skits, which are montages of fragmentary images and experiences, each capturing a different aspect of Eagle’s life. In these skits, Eagle and his collaborators are performers and comics. Just as comedy shows rely not only on content, but also on timing, delivery, and chemistry, so too do Eagle songs synergize different aspects of their performance. So, what’s the difference between streaming an Eagle track and watching it live is the difference between watching a comedy show on a screen and going to a club.
For example, while he’s playing the song “79th and Stony Island,” the giant screen behind the Eagle shows product commercials from the 1990s, while deadpans reveal both his Chicago upbringing and his current life. talked about the darkness of And as the song progressed, I felt it all: the frustration that the American Dream hangs in front of you forever out of reach (“Dream American Dream”), the reality of my own childhood The devastation of being wasted on (“I am”), and the aimlessness of today’s life (“Cold world without beach breaks”/…“I keep awake, I don’t sleep well .”) Fortunately, the set wasn’t all doom and gloom.; CSAR We moved from eagle struggle (“79th”) to resolution (“Circuit City”). In a more emotional and aggressive tone, the multi-talented performer triumphantly explained how he came to terms with his current identity, rapping, “I’m a whole new guy doing the same dance.” Did. The raw emotion in Eagle’s voice is particularly captivating and untouched by digital processing.
In this way, the artist Eagle used a variety of creative mediums at his disposal to convey his emotional experiences. Meanwhile, the comic Eagle sprinkled humor between his songs. For example, Eagle’s reference in “I’ll Fight You” is a reference to an altercation between a journalist and his 1984 semi-famous wrestler (“Blacked Out Like John Stossel”) to a modern meme It even extended to wordplay (“who is who”), including Are there Megasus among us? ”). These references, combined with the occasional dry wit between songs, gave the whole experience an air of whimsy.
In all this talk about the comic Eagle and the artist Eagle, it’s easy to forget about the rapper Eagle. More specifically, Eagle, a rapper’s rapper. During the show, Eagle demonstrated his ability as a wordsmith by freestyling an entire verse at the end of his 2017 song “95 Radios” with his own humor, wordplay and layered rhymes. bottom. Furthermore, when he paid tribute to his idol, the late MF Doom (widely known as one of his great underground rappers), he told the audience that he wanted to take his career to the next decade. It reminded me that I am still a rap student after all this time.
Ultimately, my only gripe with the show was the audience, an assortment of middle-aged rap fanatics that surprised me when I first walked into Beat Kitchen. and while the audience seemed to appreciate the show, it lacked a certain energy that is present in most rap concerts. enthusiasm, a concert spirit that makes the audience lip-sync to every word and jump to every beat. Perhaps it lacked this energy because the songs on the show were from a new album and the crowd wasn’t very familiar with them. Or maybe the enthusiastic crowd is someone listening to “rhymeless stoner rap,” to quote “Circuit City.” How does Eagle describe the type of wrap that is prevalent today? Eagle set out to rediscover his identity on his latest album and found it in the audience that night. Old-school hip-hop audiences have the savvy to keep up with the modern age, but they have an aversion to the bait of hype-chasing streams. It’s a big part of modern rap. Eagle and his audience wanted to keep doing what they love and enjoy the experience.
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