- Hi, I'm Baron Vaughn.
That's Open Mike Eagle.
- That is me in fact.
- That's what I've heard about you.
A lot of people say, "You know who that guy is?
"He's Open Mike Eagle."
- I'm glad they get that part right.
(laughing)
- What are the parts that they usually get wrong?
- Just about everything else.
- Mm.
Well, you know what I'm interested to know what?
To Know what?
You know what? - To know what?
- You know what I'm interested to know what?
(laughing) - What are you
interested to know what about what?
What? - You know, the the fact
that I tripped on my words is a perfect segue
into people like yourself who know how to rap
- Rap? - Yes.
And know how to handle language,
because there was a little bit of hip hop news
that sort of dropped last night.
J. Cole released-- - Oh my gosh.
Are we about to talk
about that, Baron? - Yes, I know.
You said you didn't really want to talk about it (chuckling)
but I saw your tweet and I was like,
"Well, now I got to talk to Mike about it."
- Yeah, I wrote a couple of tweets now.
The last one kind of gives a sense
of where I'm at right now.
- Oh, yeah?
- Yeah.
- Well, where are you at right now?
What was the first tweet that you wrote?
- How about this.
Before that, why don't you set the scene for the people
on what incidents has occurred
and I'll tell you what my responses have been.
- Okay, so J. Cole dropped a album.
Was that a full album last night?
- I believe it was just a song.
- Just a song, one song, "Snow on the Bluff",
I believe is what it was called.
And there were some lyrics that a lot of people thought
had to do with another very brilliant rapper, Noname.
And people been talking about it, you know,
on the on the twits.
- Many people.
- Many people and I saw that you were talking about it
so I was really curious as to what your take,
as a person who's in that profession,
what your take is.
- Well, you know, and me being in the profession
is kind of why it's a difficult thing for me to talk about.
You know, one of the things that we speak about
on this program, or we're starting to,
is that I can lean quite cynical at times
and when it comes to my profession--
- [Baron] No, get out of here.
- Yeah, man.
when it when it comes to my profession,
that's probably the area of life
where I am the most cynical.
So I have to preface any of these views
with the fact that my cynicism informs them all.
Especially now.
- [Baron] Okay.
Cynicism informs them all.
I like it.
- So my first tweet was just in complete disbelief
that people were saying that J. Cole
had sent bars at Noname in the song
'cause to me, that seemed just so absurdly unintelligent.
- [Baron] (laughing) Why is that?
- Well, it's for a lot of reasons.
One is Noname is really doe.
Like she is really doe. (laughing)
- She's very good. - Like, she is fire
and like, she's got the kind of style that you might think,
you might call it unassuming.
- That's part of her skill set, though.
Like, she catches you off guard
with the lyricism. - Exactly.
But then the things that she says are quite pointed
and it's like, you know, she could easily cause somebody
going at her to trip over themselves`
and be made to look very, very foolish.
So that's one level.
On another level, it's the moment that we're in politically,
where some of the things that he seemed to be aiming at her
were about, like policing her tone
and how she comes across about issues,
which seems also not smart in this sort of environment
to critique her in such a fashion.
Just seems that it would, that he would know
that whatever he's actually trying to say
is going to possibly be drowned out
by just the audacity of him, approaching her in that way.
And then...
See, the third level is where I get real, real cynical.
- Ooh, that's my favorite level.
We're in the third level of Mike's inferno.
This is the one that's the cynicism.
- Now I'm talking to the world now.
And I'ma be letting you all in
on kind of dark thoughts I have
when I sit alone to think
about my personal-- ♪ Ya better listen world ♪
- Yeah.
So J. Cole is in a very unique position
in terms of rap music.
He is positioned as kind of the alternative
in terms of the highest selling rappers.
Like, you have the mainstream rap image,
you have J. Cole positioned as like the safe,
thoughtful alternative, right?
- [Baron] Alt-Rap image?
- Yeah, and it's supposed to be,
it's positioned contrary
to like, the dangerous, hood, street image
that a lot of other mainstream rappers portray.
- [Baron] Okay, okay.
- From my vantage point,
that is due to him being surrounded
by some very, very smart people
who have done things and made moves to make sure
that he is positioned that way.
You know, like I said, in contrast to the mainstream.
Part of what goes with that
is making sure that the people who pay attention to him
aren't aware of other very intelligent
and thoughtful rappers.
Like that's part of how you maintain that position.
- Hm, interesting, - Is that you don't
shine a light on things that are done in any way similarly.
And so to me, that's the other unintelligent part of this
is like, for him to, I think thus far,
to protect that position, he has been very intentional
on not shining lights on rappers coming up
that he isn't tied into business-wise.
So somebody around him had to know
that him directing this sort of energy at her
was going to do nothing except blow her up.
- Hm, interesting.
- And so then my cynic brain gets extra active and wonders,
this is all some weird theater.
And then they end up going on tour together next year.
(laughing) Which is great, you know?
is not a bad idea at all.
As a cynic, I don't like that sort of gamesmanship
if that is what's at play.
- Okay, so J. Cole and Noname, hitting the road,
brought to you by Lupe Fiasco.
- Something.
- That's fascinating.
That's very fascinating.
Yeah, I saw somebody say
that they could have just talked about this in DMs
and left the rest of us out of it.
- Who's to say they didn't,
as I guess is what the cynic in me would say.
- Where's that senate come from, Mike?
- It's from my experiences in the industry
and a lot of it is kind of colored,
if I'm to be very honest,
by the fact that I feel as if I represent
a sort of rapper in that same space
that doesn't receive attention in the same way.
And that could be for a myriad of reasons.
But the part of the cynic in me wants
to frame some of that reasoning as being systemic.
(laughing)
(whooshing)
(metal squeaking)