Pinball II
Like its 2024 predecessor *Pinball*, part of the appeal of *Pinball II* is hearing MIKE step out of the fog of his own introspection and do something a little more sociable. Make no mistake: This is not straightforward rap music. But where *tears of joy*-era MIKE (age 20) sounded hell-bent on unburdening his soul, here he seems not only content with rapping for rap’s sake but resplendent in it. He pulls together West Coast breeziness (“Splat!”), Detroit bounce (“#74,” “WYC4”), weird Cubist R&B (“Dolemite”), and DMV dreamscapes (the Niontay feature “Shaq & Kobe”) with a free-associative joy that manages to be both fun and totally nonlinear. As for his collaborator, you guess he picked the name because of how hard he bubbles.
MIKE & Tony Seltzer’s ‘Pinball II’ consists of 17 straight-to-the-point jams, packed with sharp production and carefree flows.