Mikey Tableman Finds His Way Through MY MANIC MAZE
“Rather than limiting his story to a single medium, Tableman designed My Manic Maze as an integrated multimedia experience. The project intentionally blurs the lines between literature, cinema, and audio art, allowing audiences to explore the same emotional themes through different creative lenses."
—The Source
There’s no neat roadmap through My Manic Maze, and that’s exactly the point. On his seven-track spoken word project, Mikey Tableman takes listeners inside the contradictions of the human mind, drawing from his own experiences with anxiety, depression, addiction, burnout, identity, recovery and hope. Produced and engineered by Jerry Lang and Nate Sounds and released through EQUATOR, the album blends spoken word, music and storytelling without trying to prescribe solutions. Instead, Tableman focuses on what these experiences can actually feel like—the overthinking, uncertainty, darkness, humor and moments of clarity that can all exist alongside one another. The result is deeply personal, but there’s plenty of room for listeners to recognize pieces of their own experiences within his words.
That honesty comes through especially clearly on tracks like “The Tea,” which explores social anxiety, spiraling thoughts and the pressure to convince everyone that you’re doing just fine. “The Final Note” moves into considerably darker territory, addressing depression, hopelessness and suicidal ideation through Tableman’s lived experience and vulnerability. But My Manic Maze doesn’t stay confined to the recording itself. Tableman has expanded its themes through cinematic visuals, written work and Unspoken, a live experience combining spoken word, music, storytelling and conversation. Those ideas also continue through Conversations With The Boys, the unscripted series he hosts with longtime music executive Big Billy Clark, creating space for candid discussions about mental health, masculinity, relationships, identity and purpose. Taken together, My Manic Maze feels less like a project with a definitive ending than the beginning of a much larger conversation.
Mikey Tableman is a spoken word artist, author, performer and mental health advocate whose work uses personal storytelling as a way to create connection. He is also the founder of A Mind’s Pursuit (AMP), a nonprofit dedicated to advancing mental health awareness through storytelling, community, education, media and artistic expression. Working across spoken word, literature, film, live performance and conversation, Tableman has developed a creative practice built around saying the things people often struggle to articulate themselves. My Manic Maze brings those different parts of his work together in his most personal project to date—seven tracks, one mind a million reasons to keep the conversation going, created with the hope that someone listening might hear something familiar in them and feel less alone.
For more information on Mikey Tableman visit AMindsPursuit.org.
REVIEWS
"Rather than limiting his story to a single medium, Tableman designed My Manic Maze as an integrated multimedia experience. The project intentionally blurs the lines between literature, cinema, and audio art, allowing audiences to explore the same emotional themes through different creative lenses."
—The Source
"That willingness to leave the edges imperfect is part of what separates My Manic Maze from a traditional motivational project. Tableman is not cleaning up the experience for the audience. Instead, he is allowing them to witness its contradictions."
—The Hype Magazine
