Mike-E is not just a rapper. He’s not just a beat poet. Mike-E, and what he’s built his career on, is a humanitarian. Born in Ethiopia, Mike-E has an undeniable connection to his native Africa. And when he’s not volunteering for non-profit organizations or lending a hand to the education about and eradication of AIDS, he’s writing rhymes about inner city poverty, injustices, and improving the world around him and back in his home country.

As such, there’s no better catalyst and crux for his American-born flows than Detroit, a city - nearly 90% African American - almost completely demolished by a failing economy. Making his home in the terrifyingly collapsed Motor City, Mike-E has a wealth of problems, social issues, and conflict to mine in his critically conscious lines. But while his latest release AfroFlow presents a near-catastrophic society, latent with dead ends but an undying optimism, it fails to evoke any empathy from his listeners and ultimately flounders in its own colossal aspirations.

From the outset of the disc, it’s obvious that Mike-E is not your typical club banging emcee. He explodes on AfroFlow’s self-titled opener, “Beat, rhymes, mics, cash/ Fifteen minutes of fame don’t last.” He’s not out to make a quick buck or sell out for the sake of popularity, and he wants to make it abundantly clear. Oddly though, the track rides one of the most aggressive and potentially popular beats on the album. Emerging from a minimalist tribal drum line, a firefight of hi-hats and distorted, funk guitars ambushes the song, not unlike Outkast’s spastic “Gasoline Dreams.”

But aside from “AfroFlow,” there are only a handful of cuts on the album that actual stand a chance at seeing the mainstream. The production of “Steppin’ On Toes” witnesses a cocky Mike-E whispering into the mic about battle rap’s insignificance and his own stellar lyricism. It boasts the most developed chorus, riding a staccato keyboard while forcing all arms in hearing distance to bounce with the beat. Similarly, “Sidney Said It” is reminiscent of Talib Kweli’s radio jams and could easily lift Mike-E to similar status.

Unfortunately, when he’s not pumping out these high-energy tracks, he’s stuck trying to uplift an entire nation while single handedly solving its problems. The traditional African percussion and (oddly) Asian composition of “Warrior’s Rhythm” makes the track sound like a rallying cry for a dying country. He beats out, “The beautiful rhythm, the powerful rhythm,” while and later entices, “United together, we tighter than ever.” The song’s epic choral end only adds to the track’s preposterous attitude.

In the same vein, “Call Us By Name” is a plea to the rest of the world to stop portraying Africa as a struggling, hopeless continent. Its message is too ambitious to accomplish in a week-long worldwide conference, let alone a three-minute song, though his courage and strength throughout the song, confronting the issue is uplifting, “I’ll never hold my head in shame/ I’ll make the world call us by name.”

It’s this undying outlook and valor that holds the album together while ultimately destroying it. It seems that if anyone can make an album that inspires and truly changes the world this drastically, it’d be Mike-E. Unfortunately, AfroFlow is not that album. If we’re lucky though, Detroit and Africa will stop being such an inspiration to his flows and he won’t have to change the world himself. It will have changed itself.

by Chris Gaerig

RELATED CONTENT

• • Twista, Lloyd & Killer Mike Hold “Jena 6″ Benefit Concert [sohh.com]

  • VIDEO Mike and Ike feat. Poise “Classic Sound”

  • VIDEO Murs & 9th Wonder “Murray’s Revenge”

  • AUDIO Bishop Lamont ft. Mike Anthony “Get Right Back”

  • VIDEO Gadget Review: Tonium’s Pacemaker DJ mixer