Listening to Bronx-based rapper/producer MIKE is like wandering into someone’s head: One thought leads dreamily to another, straight stories get interrupted by tangents, beats drop like ellipses in a long run-on sentence. A companion to 2019’s Tears of Joy, Weight of the World is first and foremost a chronicle of grief, exploring depression (“Alert*”), poverty (“Delicate”), and the death of MIKE’s mother (“Get Rich Quick Scheme,” “Trail of Tears”) over a haze of lo-fi productions that draw your ears in but playfully avoid hitting any obvious center. It can be dislocating, yes. Then again, so are the feelings MIKE deals with. And while some of the imagery is bleak, the overall mood is one of gratitude. “I’m only diving when it’s deep,” he raps on “Weight of the Word*,” “Searching for that peace when I'm coming down.“ Yeah, the weight might be heavy. But you sense MIKE is grateful to have held it.