open mike eagle takes an ax to anxiety on “relatable”

Over the past decade, Open Mike Eagle has charted a course as among hip-hop’s preeminent chroniclers of tiny anxieties and micro aggressions. He is, in a word “relatable.” But where is the line between writing about the bullshit minutiae of daily life and being complicit in your own exploitation for the entertainment of others? That’s the question in his latest single, the masterfully meta-meta “Relatable (Peak OME).”

“Relatable” turns OME’s microscope back in on the Project Blowed MC and ends up with a hall of mirrors. Over a beat that’s both introspective and driving, he drives a wedge into the conflicts of his public persona. Lashing out at critics, interviewers, fair weather fans, and, most pointedly, himself, the song is focused one moment, and grapeshot the next. Like the best of Open Mike Eagle’s music, it’s a whirling inner monologue about trying to exist in the modern world—both peak OME and hella-relatable.

“Relatable (Peak OME)” is from Open Mike Eagle’s forthcoming What Happens When I Try to Relax.