Killer Mike, one half of the hip-hop duo Run the Jewels, protégé of OutKast, and outspoken advocate for Black Live Matters, explores his own story on the deeply autobiographical Michael. Named after the Atlanta rapper’s first name — Michael Santiago Render in full — and illustrated with his teenage portrait, the successor to R.A.P. Music (2012) revisits his childhood within Georgia’s African-American community, his hip-hop epiphany, and the shadows of his family past. Even so, Michael refuses to give in to darkness, instead evoking with nostalgia the spiritual communion of Sunday services, the aromas of soul food, and the lively conversations in the barbershop lounges of Adamsville, the west Atlanta neighborhood where Killer Mike grew up. Produced by No I.D., Michael lays bare the intimate side of the Southern rap activist.