Album review: Open Mike Eagle’s ‘Art Rap After Party’

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Consider Open Mike Eagle’s “Art Rap After Party,” a sequel to the stellar “Unapologetic Art Rap,” the contemporary equivalent of Hieronymus Bosch painting an extravagantly bearded horde of hipsters.

For the wry graduate of the Leimert Park open-mike workshop Project Blowed, hell is a subterranean landscape of shady self-promoters, snobs and trend-hopping dilettantes. And Eagle calls out every poseur on his new EP: name-droppers, people in biblical sandals, and girls with haircuts like Randy “Macho Man” Savage.

Unlike many of the dull and didactic “conscious” types that plagued underground hip-hop for the last decade, Eagle has a lacerating wit, mocking the city where everyone, as he puts it, has their own clothing line, cupcake and Twitter update.

An heir to the uncompromised complexity of Freestyle Fellowship and Busdriver, Eagle is a deft satirist — never heavy-handed and capable of striking clueless narcissists and subtle bigots.

Eagle’s EP, released last week from Mush Records, not only ensures him an e-vite to the next scenester bash, it solidifies his spot as one of Los Angeles’ smartest young voices.

—Jeff Weiss

Open Mike Eagle
“Art Rap After Party”
Mush Records
Three stars

Open Mike Eagle will play Tuesday as part of the Project Blowed Anniversary Party at the Echoplex, 1154 Glendale Blvd. 8:30 p.m. $15.