Myke G learns a rapper named Mike G exists, is impressed, slightly saddened that one of his potential rapper names is now off the table

It's been a little while since I put my music thoughts into writing, so I have a good amount of opinions to espouse. I've been listening to predominantly hip hop this year, and I'm happy with the direction the genre is currently moving, so the next couple weeks I'll go over my thoughts on what I've listened to this year.

Earlier today, I stumbled across Award Tour EP, a six song tape by a rapper called Mike G. Mike G is a dude with a tight name and one of a massive amount of dudes in Odd Future. I'm not that into OF, mainly because I haven't caught up with all their output yet, not for any specific dislike of their sound.

Anyway, mainly because this dude's name is Mike G, and he was a dude in OF who I had never even heard of before today, I gave the tape a spin. I downloaded it here, and the file came with a bunch of race car image files corresponding with the six songs on the EP, which ends up being kind of ironic -- and I'm like 99% in an unintentional way - as most of its tracks are roomy synth beats that belie a sound that would best be acommanied by 2009 Toyota Yarises, or at least some old school pimped out Caddies since it's a hip hip EP and putting pics of Yarises would not be G at all.

Much like a Yaris, Mike G mantains a steady, fuel efficient talk-rap flow against Neptunes-inspired synth and drum machine beats. His flow plays well off the beats, but his rhymes are average. He plays with some of the ultra violence Tyler the Creator deals in heavily, but he doesn't stick to it, so when rhymes randomly pop up about Jeffery Dommer and burning down his family's house, it's more bizarre and out-of-place than anything else, at least to one who isn't familiar with Odd Future.

The EP is co-hosted, Ghostface Killa on Only Built 4 Cuban Linx style, by some dude named Vince Staples, who spits with a nasally, uptempo style. He's mostly forgettable but stays out of the way of the beats enough to tolerate. The only other guest spot is by something called SPEAK, who, other than dropping a Hacksaw Jim Duggan reference, is pretty weak.

The beats are all solid, the dude has the same name as I, and it's good background music at minimum, so it'll be in my iTunes for a while.

Rating: Better than Kreayshawn