Milo

Ever wonder what would happen if Serengeti and Open Mike Eagle, after a game of Cranium over hummus and dolmas (dude, the dolmas was so leafy and oily, bro), did the dirty?

No?

Me neither.

But that’s what it would take to genetically reproduce the artist known as Milo. My friend Jonathan posted a video for “post hoc ergo propter hoc (for Schopenhauer)” on my timeline and then promptly pestered me to watch it. I was like yea, yea bro. I swear I’m on it. I really did have intentions of checking it out. But I was just caught up in the synapse overload known as “this time of year”, which really mean I was too busy shoveling food and whiskey into my holes and loosening my fucking belt to listen to music.

But as usual, that dickface (er, Jonathan) was fucking right. Milo, and his new releases, a double EP, Things that Happen at Day/Night with HellFyre Club, who also fuzz with Nocando and VerBS and Open Mike Eagle, might be the most giggly and warm-in-the-loins I’ve gotten for a release since 4NML HSPTL.

Milo is a certain kind of rapper’s certain kind of rapper. What I mean by that is, Fuck you! The re-listenability of Things That Happen at Day/Night isn’t because you need to decipher thick syllabification or obscure mystical references, but in its simplicity. It’s so relaxed and full of lines that make you go, whoa! I wish I’d said that! Or, I never thought of that shit that way! Or, you’re gonna make me Google Schopenhauer aren’t you, Milo!? fucker! I don’t want to be the dude to call Milo smart, but dude is showing off his Lichtenberg scars!

In fact, I don’t think he’s that smart. I think he’s the kind of dude who has a fucking sponge for a brain and can soak up information and regurgitate terminology semi-appropriately in a stream-of-consciousness that’d make Old Bull Lee put down the bennies. It’s not smart, it’s an aptitude for absorbing. Milo is that dude that passes classes with minimal effort yet maximum understanding. And to the little Asian girls asleep in the library, he is the enemy!

It’s a talent. And one that Milo has displayed seemingly effortlessly on Things That Happen… But what people don’t understand is how much effort it really takes. Bullshitting a class is actually harder than just studying. Because you’re managing to learn enough to convince your professor of your mastery, yet still making it out to the rap shows, getting high all the time, and existing on levels of sleep that make even the fumes your running your shitty little car on be like DAMN!

I appreciate this kind of album and Milo as an artist because it seems so effortless. Like a MJ jump shot. But we forget the countless hours practicing perfection when nobody is looking. I always say that you are only as good as you are as when nobody is watching. Which is why I’m a piece of shit and Milo is putting out EPs on Hellfyre.

I’m genuinely excited about Milo. His EPs are refreshing, unpessimistic, and funny. Lines like, “I’ll never date a girl who doesn’t know who Neal Degrasse Tyson is…” have me smitten. I love it when someone new comes from out of nowhere to elbow their way into my pantheon of artists I’m gay for. Only Milo didn’t really do much elbowing. He was more like, “Um, pssst, excuse me. Your moral philosophy is showing.”