One Foot Out the Door Sampler + Review

As quickly as the mixtape was "leaked" (was it leaked? What even happened? How does grammar work in the middle of a set of parentheses?), the songs have started to sprout up on YouTube, which means cool white hip-hop bloggers can embed them in their awesome blogz!
Here are two of my favorites, first "I Don't Trust Myself."

Mike basically took a pretty cool John Mayer song, flipped it, and made it hot. We've seen him do this a bajillion times. If Mike touches your song, you're fucked, because he will out-produce you, and his lyrics will be better than yours. This song is an achievement in production. This dude just knows how to construct a song. The synths are on point and go HAAAAAARD, but Mike's silky sandpaper vocals keep you emotionally grounded with it all. What a song.
Next, "You Don't Have to Leave."

Just a feel good, popped-out anthem of lost love. The bassline, the synths, the drums, the vocals. It's all perfect. The production value of all of these songs is redonkulously high. Mike has really come into his own as a vocalist; you get the sense that he's not holding back anymore, and he's not trying to hide behind the whole cute & raspy thing anymore. He's using lots more falsetto, and he's really belting out the middle register with a lot more confidence than he used to (at least that's what my music teacher mom told me).

To say that topping "A Matter of Time" is a tall task would be understating its greatness. I would describe "One Foot Out the Door" as Mike's "Late Registration" to AMOT's "College Dropout." The sound is different, but we're witnessing his evolution as a vocalist, producer, and songwriter. Is it better? There will be people on both sides of the fence. Personally, I would say yes, it is. The fact that he went from a 9.5 to a 10 only leads me to believe that all the hype he's giving his album is warranted. Given how many shits I've already flipped listening to the new mixtape, I don't know if I'll have any shits left after the album drops.
This mixtape warrants tens of listens, just like his first one did. It doesn't have the bangers like "Evil Woman" and "Smoke & Drive," but it's much more complex musically; the beats have layers that take a lot of time to discover, and some songs take a little time to get into. But once you do, you will be creaming your jeans.
My only complaint? There isn't enough of it.
Download it if you haven't already.

"One Foot Out the Door" - Greatest Thing of All-Time (The Departed)