Isola Brooklyn Presents: Open Mike Eagle

Come enjoy Open Mike Eagle live April 11th! Doors at 8pm. Isola Brooklyn is Williamsburg's new sanctuary for artistic expression. Isola Brooklyn is more than a venue to see a show. It's a canvas for artists to share their passion.

About Open Mike Eagle - Website

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 ​,​ ​​, and​ ​ coincided with headlining solo tours and top-billing at events like Adult Swim Festival. Between studio sessions, Eagle co-founded , 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. Since founding his record label Auto Reverse Records, though, Eagle has scaled back the jokes. He’s finally unpacking his traumas and acknowledging their impact.

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 ​,​ 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 ​ (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 b​ lended 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.

Host or Publisher Isola Brooklyn