Album Reviewed: Introducing Mike and Ike

Austin hip hop has been laying pretty dormant for the past few years. With the passing of Hip Hop Humpday at The Mercury Room, the scene broke apart and dispersed. In a way, the body of Austin Hip Hop passed with it. Some pockets of local MCs here and there, and several DJ spots like Nasty’s and Plush act as a stop-gap form of life support.

The scene NEEDS a jolt. Something to bring it all back together.

In come Michael Richardson and Jon Isaac Ramos (Alpha 2020), better known as Mike and Ike, with their simply-named debut album: Introducing Mike and Ike. These two wordsmiths may be the chest pumping that will resuscitate the scene.

The good.

For a first effort, Introducing Mike and Ike is quite impressive. For a number of reasons. To begin, the production is impeccable. This isn’t your average couple of Goldie Lookin’ Chain soundin’ fools who stole a laptop and pawed a cracked copy of ProTools. It is quite obvious that Ike, who also fills the roll of producer, spent a great deal of time polishing the sound throughout the entire album. Levels are properly set, the beats aren’t over-filtered, and he apparently has a handle on how to tweak the EQs on multiple, simultaneous tracks. Trust that this is commonly fucked up. But not on this album. ‘Tis clean and well mastered.

That, or Ike is extremely lucky with the results of randomly pushing buttons. But it’s very doubtful that luck has anything to do with it.

The use of Jazz, Soul, and Blues as the backdrop for most of the songs is especially refreshing. Sure, Madlib got to dig through Blue Note’s archives for his masterpiece, RJD2 does his thing with Blues and Soul, and pretty much all of East Coast Rap up until the mid nineties utilized these music forms. But for the past ten years, beyond a couple of Neptunes remixes, the Euro-Tech influence became the dominant force behind pretty much all the production in Hip Hop, including Rap. The original influences of East Coast Rap were sidelined, or played second fiddle to other styles.

Ike tips his hat on almost every track to tuxedo brass, tasteful piano grooves, snare rim-shots, and ridiculously sexy jazz vocals. Very reminiscent to older Tribe, KMD, and De La. Even some Jungle Brothers might be found up in there.

The pitches of Mike and Ike’s voices work really well together. Not in a Dead Prez kind of way, but in a Black Star kind of way. Both have very distinct tones, with Mike taking the lower and more lyrical route and Ike going into more of the melodic staccato direction. They play off of each other with needle-tipped timing, which is easy to flub in the midst of mic passing.

The Bad.

There is nothing specific about this album that stands out as poor. The only real issues with what Mike and Ike have done here is more related to what remains of a crooked legacy in Rap. Ever since Kurtis Blow hit the scene, one certain element can be found in almost every Rap group’s first recorded rhymes.

[Buckle in for a long-winded diatribe that should in no way shed a negative light on Mike and Ike’s work specifically. The following is pure generalization.]

One day, it won’t be such a problem. But for now, it persists:

It’s always strange when a group’s first album is focused almost solely on how accomplished they are vs. those who are currently popular. It always arrives in the form of [NONE of the following quotes are taken directly from Introducing Mike and Ike, but are represented in and amongst their tracks in spirit] “they aren’t real like us” or “they sold out, those bitches, but not us” and the ever popular “my flows are nice, them dudes are fucking RETARDS”. The irony is that those who supposedly “sold out” had practically the same lyrics on their first album, aimed at whoever was on top at that time. It’s all so cyclical.

However, it is fair to note that freshman albums are supposed to be announcements. Warnings to the old guard. It’s always been this way. It’s a product of a battle-rap mentality, where nobodies get on stage for the first time in their life and are forced to compete with pros by endlessly repeating how much better they are than their competition. This is necessary because they have not built up an actual reputation that will precede them. But battle-rap, while a fascinating art form in its own right, may not be appropriate for a studio effort. Again, this is not a critique of Introducing, because this is an industry-wide issue.

However, it is interesting to note that many albums which are considered classic, do not follow that path (Fugees’ The Score, Tribe’s Low End Theory, Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet), but the vast majority of newer classics do in fact cater to this pattern, whether it be the artists’ first, third, or fifth album. So it is more than understandable that Mike and Ike would employ battle-rap tactics throughout their first published effort. The first album is, after all, an announcement of their arrival. And in the world of Rap, newcomers better come out swingin’, lest they be labeled mere backpackers with no spine.

The hope is that given how talented they both are, their sophomore effort will showcase even more of their creative concepts, over the need to blast their apparent opponents. Once their gifts come through, they won’t need to tout their skills any longer. They’ll be comfortable enough to simply prove it.

There were a couple of real stand-out tracks on this album. The variety of which are rarely seen on first-runs. Usually because first-timers don’t have the resources, or they aren’t comfortable enough in their own shoes to try and pull it off.

1. Ladies and Gentlemen – an introduction which samples some nice Eazier Said Than Done action. Like a warning shot over the bow.

2. Classic Sound (Featuring Poise) – [you can find the video here] The basic gist is this: these guys know how to rhyme, their production is really-really tight, and all the mouths of bejeweled shit-talkers out there can’t touch it. The jazz influence is more than welcomed by this reviewer. East coast styled, with some southern sensibilities.

5. Make em Listen – a call to shed light on current social crisis. Nothing specific, just a call to arms in the fight against general apathy (specifically, the apathy of the downtrodden and dispossessed). Rather reminiscent to J Live’s Satisfied?, which is a track worthy of working to be compared to.

6. Fresh – Blue Note-ed track that explains how connected many previously separate segments of society have become recently, through hip hop. And how fresh that is. On top of how some in “the game” are not so fresh.

7. The Basics – using some Guru and ODB blurbs scratched in and amongst to soap-box why Braggin’ Bling Rap is just not worth the effort, creatively speaking.

10. Keep Up – probably the most self-conscious, and most introspective rhymes on the entire album. Mike and Ike both speak about how difficult it is for them to stay focused as they create, but they keep the discussion at a high level. At almost life-affirming poster-quote level. But this peak at potential weakness is extremely rare to find in first runs. Obviously, an extremely financially successful artist who fears they’ve hit their plateau will write some Woody Allen-esque piece on how sometimes they just aren’t sure about whether they can continue on. The ever-battle with self doubt. Much respect to Mike and Ike for expressing this dissonance so early in their careers.

Mike and Ike
Soul 2020 Productions
Classic Sound (Featuring Poise) video OR here [ Quicktime ]

Introducing Mike and Ike is available at Waterloo, End of an Ear, and DJ Dojo.