Mike (real name Michael Jordan Bonema) is a special hip-hop talent. It’s not uncommon to see the New York-based rapper being praised for both his lyricism and production skills. Indeed, he’s a well-rounded individual, and any renaissance man like that must have quite the story to tell. Mike sure does and he outlines it in a new episode of Scenes.
In the clip, he discusses what drives his signature lyrical honesty, saying, “When I was younger, it was hard for me to just talk about emotional stuff. Music became a thing where… that was the one place where vulnerability was OK, for me to feel like my whole self and not just the bit that’s conforming to the rest of what the world wants me to conform to.”
Beyond that, he also gets into topics like his record label 10k, his associates, the role New York plays in his life and career, and what’s next.
The music community started taking notice of Mike when he dropped a handful of well-received self-released projects in 2015. He had a bit of a commercial breakthrough with his latest project, 2021’s Disco!, his first album to rank on the Billboard Top Current Album Sales chart. He’s looking to build on that momentum with Beware Of The Monkey, a new album set to drop just before the year comes to a close, on December 21.
Check Mike out in the video above.