Open Mike Eagle is someone who fills a certain niche in hip-hop, but is remarkably versatile at the same time. He proves this time and time again, and continues the pattern with his latest track, “Police Myself”, which he grabbed up none other than the legendary MF DOOM for. DOOM has had quite the eventful couple of weeks, if you remember just last week he had a guest verse on the new album from Your Old Droog.
The beat on here is not a typical one for DOOM to rap over. In fact, this must be the most trap-influenced production DOOM has ever dropped a verse on. This further debunks the rumors that DOOM has just been using old, pre-recorded verses for his new features, as he not only needed to spit on top of what is probably a somewhat foreign beat to him (although he can pretty much rap over anything), but his verse also directly coincides with what Mike is trying to get across here thematically. On the track, the two rap about the thought that constantly looms in the back of their head, as they realize they need to be extra careful of what they’re doing at all times due to the color of their skin, and how this affects their day-to-day lives. Since they can’t necessarily trust the real police to treat them in a fair way, they have to “police themselves”.
Open Mike Eagle is coming off a short, but still extremely profound and personal project that arrived late last year, titled What Happens When I Try to Relax. He has continued to ride the momentum from that, dropping some high-quality singles in 2019, as he recently teamed up with Danny Brown for last week’s “Unfiltered”. These two tracks have been in support of Comedy Central’s new socially aware stand-up and music series: “The New Negroes”, and it looks like there may be more singles to come out of this. Let’s hope so, as Mike has given us some great tracks with phenomenal guests so far, and we’d love to hear more of them. Give “Police Myself” a listen down below: