With a floating, woozy baritone flow and dreamlike self-produced beats, rapper MIKE continues pushing rap in more experimental directions. He began reaching more listeners near the end of the 2010s, frequently releasing mixtapes, collaborating with Earl Sweatshirt, and finding critical acclaim with his heavy, grieving 2019 album Tears of Joy, its 2020 follow-up Weight of the World, 2021's Disco!, and more.

MIKE was born Michael Jordan Bonema in New Jersey in 1998 and relocated with his mother to London for part of his youth. While in London, he discovered the grime scene and upon returning to the States as a young teenager, he began applying that influence to his own music. As a rapper, MIKE created his own abstract beats as a perfect backdrop for his often introspective lyrics and distant flows. He began sharing his songs around 2015, releasing several smaller EPs and singles before his 2017 mixtape May God Bless Your Hustle attracted more wide-scale national attention. That project's grainy samples and disconnected rapping set the pace for a very productive 2018 for MIKE. In that year alone, the rapper released four mixtapes, including critically acclaimed collections War in My Pen and Renaissance Man. MIKE's friend and sometimes collaborator Earl Sweatshirt's late-2018 album Some Rap Songs worked in a similarly disjointed production style as MIKE's work.

In 2019, he released Tears of Joy, an emotionally moving album he made in sorrowful reaction to his mother's death. About a year after the release of Tears of Joy, MIKE issued the LP Weight of the World. In addition to MIKE's own increasingly recognizable signature beats, the record featured production from KeiyaA, Darryl Johnson, and Red Lee as well as guest features from Earl Sweatshirt and Jadasea. He returned in 2021 with the album Disco! and collaborated with Wiki and the Alchemist on 2022's three-song EP One More, released weeks before his next full-length, Beware of the Monkey. ~ Fred Thomas

Formerly working as gothic trap producer Yung Gutted, Tony Seltzer rose to prominence as a key producer for artists like Wiki and Princess Nokia. Alongside his extensive production catalog, Seltzer released three collaborative mixtapes of his own: in the late 2010s, he dropped Heat Check and Heat Check Vol. 2 with WiFiGawd and Avenues alongside A Lau.

Hailing from Brooklyn, producer Tony Seltzer started his career under the name Yung Gutted, releasing ominous, horror-inspired trap on early tapes like INTERNET GRAVEYARD, VOL. 1 (2012) and INTERNET GRAVEYARD, VOL. 2 (2013). The producer soon linked up with Brooklyn rapper and former RATKING member Wiki, producing one of the tracks for his solo debut, Lil Me. After dropping a third volume of the INTERNET GRAVEYARD series in May 2016, the producer retired the Gutted alias to work as Tony Seltzer, posting "RIP YUNG GUTTED, TONY SELTZER UP NEXT" to his social media profiles.

Under the Tony Seltzer moniker, the musician's productions grew in scope and variety. In addition to working extensively with Wiki on his 2017 album No Mountains in Manhattan, Seltzer collaborated on singles with artists varying from Squidnice to MIKE, dipping into trap and the N.Y.C. revivalist scene. In 2018, he worked heavily with Princess Nokia on the EP A Girl Cried Red before dropping his first mixtape, Heat Check. A collaboration with D.C. rapper WiFiGawd, the tape saw Seltzer continue to expand on his woozy, electronic trap sound. During the following years, the musician was more productive than ever. In 2019, Seltzer worked heavily on Sneaks' Highway Hypnosis, Gabe 'Nandez's Diplomacy, and Wiki's OOFIE, while in 2020, he produced extensively for Princess Nokia's Everything Is Beautiful and dropped two collaborative tapes of his own (a second volume of Heat Check and Avenues, a joint tape with A Lau). This period continued Seltzer's exploration of trap, along with ventures into Brooklyn drill with Rah Swish and Leeky G Bando. ~ David Crone