Brick Body Kids Still Daydream
Open Mike Eagle
2017
Brick Body Kids Still Daydream is a searingly political record for systolic political times. It chronicles the life cycle of the Robert Taylor Homes, a housing project on the South side of Chicago that was demolished completely years ago.
Families that had lived under the same roof for three generations were forced to scatter, condemned by bureaucrats and faceless cranes and public indifference. Mike Eagle brings the Robert Taylor Homes back to life–literally, with arms and eyes and a head like the dome of a stadium–and fights until the last brick is made to crumble.
In case there was any ambiguity about the political and cultural forces that lead to the Robert Taylor Homes’ eventual destruction, Brick Body Kids Still Daydream ends with perhaps the most powerful song of Mike Eagle’s catalog to date. “my auntie’s building” is a tour de force. “They say America fights fair,” he raps. “But they won’t demolish your timeshare.” This is the point: the decay and eventual destruction of public housing–and of the physical lives of Black Americans generally–has been normalized in a way that should be grotesquely absurd. “They blew up my auntie’s building / Put out her great-grandchildren / Who else in America deserves to have that feeling? / Where else in America will they blow up your village?
Stand-Out Tracks
95 Radios
Legendary Iron Hood
(How Could Anybody) Feel At Home
