With his 2019 album Tears of Joy, East Coast rapper/producer MIKE crafted a gorgeous and drifty meditation on loss, grieving the death of his mother with a collection of floating, otherworldly beats and deadpan flows. The production style MIKE and his contemporaries had been working in for several years jelled with Tears of Joy, taking soul samples to glitchy extremes and reconstructing the entire concept of what a rap instrumental could be. Follow-up album Weight of the World doubles down on both the pain that inspired Tears of Joy as well as MIKE's limit-testing beats. As with most of his work, the record's 16 tracks are brief (only two songs are longer than three minutes) and switch abruptly between murky atmospheres and floating loops. Fragmented soul samples and buried, off-time drum patterns make up the instrumentals for "Coat of Many Colors" and "Delicate," offering a dreamy, disconnected counterpoint for MIKE's reserved vocal delivery. Lyrics are broadcasted from a guarded distance but return to themes of family, sadness, and blunt depictions of the emotional turmoil of losing his mother and the waves of pain felt in her absence. MIKE's muted rhymes and dreamlike production obscure any overt emotional statements, creating a sad, disoriented aura instead of hitting listeners over the head with easily digestible sentiments. MIKE produced all but four of the tracks himself, and his watery, low-resolution beats clash somewhat with the busier production of KeiyaA on "Get Rich Quick Scheme." The album never fully opens up into clarity, even when guests Earl Sweatshirt and Jadasea show up for verses on the album's final two songs. Much like Tears of Joy, Weight of the World centers entirely around MIKE processing his loss. He offers glimpses of childhood memories and jumps between timelines, the jumble of nostalgia, grief, and hope mirrored by production that always hovers in a liminal space. It's a wonderful continuation of the creative depths he began exploring on Tears of Joy, again resulting in music that's defined by a profoundly beautiful sadness.