To say Michael Jackson is a larger-than-life figure would be an understatement. Thriller remains one of the best-selling and most iconic albums of all time to this day. His appearance at the Super Bowl XXVII started with the crowd erupting into cheers for nearly two minutes just at the sight of him. According to Guiness World Records, he’s the most successful musical entertainer of all time. Ask anyone who the “King of Pop” is, and you can be almost certain they’ll name one man: MJ.
Despite sharing his first name with the pop star, Michael Bonema (better known mononymously as MIKE) seems quite a world away from Jackson. Being at the forefront of the underground hip-hop scene for nearly a decade, his musical output is comparatively down-to-earth and stripped back. His songs, which often sit at under two minutes, typically consist of understated yet impassioned rapping on top of looped, hazy samples. From the downtrodden blues of 2017’s May God Bless Your Hustle to the cinematic and expansive soundscapes of 2023’s Burning Desire, MIKE’s prolific output shows an artist who never stops evolving but always stays true to himself. He doesn’t try to match the glamour and spectacle of someone like Jackson, and he doesn’t need to. He’s already more than proved himself.
Still, MIKE clearly sees some of himself in the popstar. When discussing his upcoming projects in a 2024 interview with Our Generation Music, he says that he has been working on an album entitled Man in the Mirror. When asked about the title, MIKE jokes that he’s “about to enter [his] Michael Jackson bag”, referring to the fact that his album would share its name with one of MJ’s many hits. While Man in the Mirror would ultimately become Showbiz!, the original idea lives on in the name and lyrics of the fifth track.
Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” stands as one of his most optimistic and sincere songs, portraying a rather straightforward message of self-improvement. The thesis of the song is plainly laid out in the chorus: “If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change.” In other words, fix yourself before you try to fix the world. It’s a message that’s been played out to the point of cliché, but it’s still one that has some value, and it makes for a pretty good pop song when you combine it with a gospel choir and an iconic key change.
28 years later, MIKE finds himself taking Jackson’s advice, but the results aren’t quite as clear cut. When the rapper talks to the “man in the mirror”, he adds that the image he sees is blurry. That one distinction brings up many complexities that MJ overlooked. Changing yourself sounds like a great idea, but it’s much easier said than done. The reality is that self-improvement is a long and winding journey, one that is often non-linear and confusing. How do you fix yourself if you don’t know what makes up your identity? How do you deal with societal pressures pushing you to be a person you don’t want to be? How do you find a balance between accepting your flaws and working on fixing them?
While he acknowledges these complexities, MIKE doesn’t let them stop him from trying to be his best self. On top of a funky groove and nostalgic electric pianos, he raps with an effortless confidence that’s been characteristic of his recent work. The beat, produced by MIKE himself under the name DJ Blackpower, is playful yet calm, acting as the perfect backdrop for the rapper’s introspective bars. Each lyric feels like its own mini journal entry, deeply entrenched in MIKE’s own experiences and reflections.
“How come when I′m off the drank when my words clearer? /
I got tired being scammed, being hurt bearer /
Only love me at the bank when the birds nearer /
I ain’t rushing for a thing, I′m a third gearer”
The key line here is the last one, showing how MIKE deals with the questions posed by his conversations with himself. Self-improvement isn’t a straight line, but that’s ok. If you rush to get where you want to be, odds are that you’re going to crash and burn. Sometimes you just have to take life as it is and, as the chorus of “man in the mirror” states, “work with it.”
Showbiz! is yet another artistic slam dunk for MIKE, but “man in the mirror” is undeniably the highlight for me. It has all the hallmarks of a great MIKE song, but it still changes things up enough to feel refreshing and new. Since the beginning, his music has portrayed wisdom beyond his years, and that’s proving to only increase as time goes on and his perspective shifts. Michael Jackson might be the “King of Pop”, MIKE’s consistent self-reflection and openness about the struggles of himself and others has turned him into something resembling rap’s everyman. While their stories are quite different, both MJ and MIKE have this in common: they looked in the mirror and made a change.
