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Open Mike Eagle by Robert Adam Mayer
SHARES NEW SINGLE “CONTRABAND (THE PLUG HAS BAGS OF ME)”
HEADLINE TOUR THIS JULY
Fresh off a tour supporting Future Islands, beloved rapper, screenwriter, comedian, and polymath Open Mike Eagle, returns with news of a new album and has shared its lead single “contraband (the plug has bags of me).” Neighborhood Gods Unlimited is due out July 11 via his own label, Auto Reverse Records, and coincides with Mike’s headline tour launching just days before the album release. “contraband (the plug has bags of me)” is produced by Kenny Segal (Billy Woods, Benjamin Booker) and reflects on coming of age experiences in Mike’s native Chicago.
Beyond his career as a musician, Mike has developed a number of television projects including his Comedy Central show The New Negroes. Speaking about that process, Mike reflects “One project I always come back to is a concept called Dark Comedy Television. It’s a show about a cable network that can only afford to be on the air for an hour a week so it has to fit its entire slate of programs in that hour.” Inspired by dramas like Get Out or Sorry to Bother You, which are stories that engage in big conversations around the trauma of marginalized peoples, and later by the surrealism of Boots Riley’s I’m A Virgo, Mike began to develop Neighborhood Gods Unlimited.
Mike continues, “The trauma at the center of Neighborhood Gods Unlimited is mine. I was shattered as a young person and I spent the majority of my life not knowing it. In my ignorance I would go on to shatter myself even further because it was all I knew. This is a story about how people who are trying to find themselves get confused when they encounter things that remind them of themselves.”
In light of the harsh realities that new series often face in the television industry, Mike decided to transform his concept into music, partly as a cathartic process. As Mike says, “It felt good to make and sometimes TV forces you to abandon things you’ve put your heart into. If that had happened with a project around this particular subject matter, it would have been bad for my mental health.” The ensuing album contains an opening theme, flashbacks, a climax and even some commercials.
Touring will see Mike begin in his adopted hometown of Los Angeles, CA on July 9 before traversing the country and culminating in an August 16th show in Washington, DC. Full routing is available below and tickets can be purchased here. Following that run, OME picks up additional dates in support of Phantogram from August 31st to September 15th.
About Open Mike Eagle:
Open Mike Eagle spent the 2010s finding comedy in rap music and American nightmares. On albums like Brick Body Kids Still Daydream and Dark Comedy, he delivered hilarious socio-political insights via half-sung verses laid atop progressive production. Acclaim from publications like Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and NPR coincided with headlining solo tours and top-billing at events like Adult Swim Festival. Between studio sessions, Eagle co-founded The New Negroes, a standup-meets-music variety show that explores perceptions of blackness. He and co-founder Baron Vaughn brought the show to Upright Citizens Brigade, Comedy Central, and venues around the U.S.
With over a dozen solo and collaborative projects to his name, Eagle has spent his career redefining and expanding the parameters of “art rap,” the term he coined as a shorthand for leftfield and avant-garde rap music. On Dark Comedy, which Pitchfork called “one of the most compelling indie-rap listens of [2014],” he chronicled everything from smartphone addiction to the realities of being an indie artist in the streaming era with self-deprecation and side-splitting absurdity. 2017’s Brick Body Kids Still Daydream (Mello Music Group) marked Eagle’s shift toward examining trauma. Here he waded through the rubble of Chicago’s demolished Robert Taylor Homes, where several family members once lived. Part documentary and part tribute, BBKSD blended powerful fantasy and grim reality. It illustrated the strength and vulnerability of a community afflicted by institutional racism and the enduring pains of life in the projects. There were few jokes but decades of survival. Anime, Trauma, and Divorce was Eagle’s first full-length album on Auto Reverse Records, the label he founded, and the most personal project of his career. On the verge of middle age, reeling from the collapse of his marriage, he probed the darkness of his past and searched for lights to guide him forward. All is not well, but Mike has never been better.
Upcoming Live Dates
^ = Cavalier (special guest)
+ = Rhys Langston (special guest)
7/9 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo ^ +7/10 – San Francisco, CA @ Bottom of the Hill ^ +
7/11 – Portland, OR @ Mission Theater ^ +
7/13 – Seattle, WA @ Barboza ^ +
7/14 – Boise, ID @ Neurolux ^ +
7/15 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge ^ +
7/17 – Denver, CO @ Lost Lake ^ +
7/19 – Las Vegas, NV @ Swan Dive ^ +
7/23 – Madison, WI @ High Noon Saloon ^ +
7/24 – Chicago, IL @ Schubas Tavern ^ +
7/25 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St Entry ^ +
8/13 – Cambridge, MA @ Middle East Upstairs
8/14 – South Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground Showcase
Opening for Clipping
8/15 – Philadelphia, PA @ Ukie Club
8/16 – Washington, D.C. @ 9:30 Club
Opening for Phantogram
8/31 – Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore
9/3 – Rochester, NY @ Anthology
9/4 – Albany, NY @ Empire Live
9/5 – Montreal, QC @ Theatre Beanfield
9/8 Portland, ME @ State Theater
9/10 Norwalk, CT @ District Music Hall
9/11 Allentown, PA @ Archer Music Hall
9/12 Huntington, NY @ The Paramount
9/15 Richmond, VA @ The National
Open Mike Eagle
Neighborhood Gods Unlimited
Auto Reverse Records
July 11, 2025
1. woke up knowing everything (opening theme)
2. me and aquil stealing stuff from work ft. Mr. AQ
3. contraband (the plug has bags of me)
4. almost broke my nucleus accumbens ft. STILL RIFT
5. ok but I’m the phone screen
6. michigan j. Wonder
7. mirror pieces in a leather bound suitcase ft. Video Dave
8. restless hands and feet
9. my co-worker clark kent’s secret black box
10. rejoinder (burning the last puzzle piece)
11. a dream of the midnight baby (not a euphemism)
12. wide leg michael jordan generation x jeans
13. sorry I got huge (also not a euphemism)
14. unlimited skull voices
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