Who: Open Mike Eagle (Los Angeles) / Milo (WI) w/local opener Abiyah.
Where: Northside Tavern (4163 Hamilton Avenue Cincinnati, OH 45223) - Front Room
When: Friday, May 31 2013, 10pm.
Cost: $FREE.99

Open Mike Eagle

"One of LA’s smartest young voices" says the LA Times...which the artist suspects may just be a covert way of saying LA is dumb. Open Mike Eagle wouldn’t terribly mind, being born and raised in Chicago where the painful winters and his uppity grandparents kept him inside as a youth. He spent his formative years watching alternative music happen on MTV, hoping to one day be able to audition for the Native Tongues. As a young adult, and after graduating with a degree in Psychology, he did the next best thing and moved to Los Angeles, joining the Project Blowed collective where he made music and toured with Busdriver, Aceyalone, Abstract Rude, Nocando and more. He’s also gained notoriety in the world of comedy by being invited by professional funny people (Paul F. Tompkins, Hannibal Buress, Matt Besser/UCB) to rap at their shows. He’d like to be rap’s Kurt Vonnegut but recognizes that he’d first have to create something as iconic as the four-stroke illustration of an anus. He practices by releasing rap albums that delight, entertain, and confuse. Eagle has released albums on Mush Records, Hellfyre Club, and, most recently, Fake Four Inc. He is a featured artist at Rhymesayers’ 2013 Soundset festival, and was an official performer at SXSW 2013.

Web: http://www.mikeeagle.net/
Music: https://www.facebook.com/louislogic/app_178091127385
Video: "Qualifiers (Live from the Laundromat)" http://youtu.be/2totiszy0ws

Milo

A clumsy messenger for a generation that is increasingly at odds with the (digital) world it is presented, milo is at the forefront of a rebellion against irony. His songwriting is brimming with an uncomfortable and unflinching persistence to depict life in a wide-eyed earnestness. It seems like the young rapper's comfort zone is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere, occupying space etched out by art rappers Open Mike Eagle and Busdriver while nonetheless taking the form to a new place. To hear milo quip about 18th century German Idealism and in the same sentence affirm a longing for Gianna Michaels is nothing. He is truly a product of a postmodern era and is raging, ardently, against it. To plagiarize some other rapper, he's a "fucking walking paradox.

Web: http://www.miloraps.com/
Music: http://miloraps.bandcamp.com/
Video: “Sweet Chin Music (Fisher King’s Anthem)” http://youtu.be/GwTmJ9KptfI

Abiyah

Local Cincinnati Indie Hip Hop artist Abiyah, who will perform opening duties for these gentlemen, has an interesting backstory on how she first connected with Open Mike Eagle. While following LA avant-rap pioneer Busdriver’s Twitter feed in late 2009, she clicked through links for an artist Busdriver was mentioning frequently: Open Mike Eagle. Abiyah proceeded to keep up with Eagle’s Twitter feed, and, in December 2009, was intrigued by the following Eagle Tweet: “I need lady vocals for my joy division remake. Whos gonna give me lady vocals?” She responded immediately, given her Punk Rock background and love for Joy Division, and recorded draft vocals (including harmonizing with Eagle on the chorus, as well as writing a verse) that received a very enthusiastic response. Although that project never came to fruition, Open Mike Eagle asked Abiyah to sing a modified version of the chorus of Blondie’s “The Tide is High” at the end of “Old Member Reclamation”, the last song on his 2011 Hellfyre Club release, “Rappers Will Die of Natural Causes.” Since that time, Eagle has been forwarding his touring peers to Abiyah for booking in Cincinnati, which, in turn, has helped rebuild the excitement in the local Hip Hop scene and has begun the process of connecting it to the larger national Indie Hip Hop scene. All this without ever having spoken to him once.

Web: http://abiyah.com/
Music: http://soundcloud.com/abiyah