Minnesota Then
Micheal David Larsen was born on November 9, 1981, in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to seventeen-year-old Kathy Averill. Larsen was raised solely by his mother, with whom he relocated to St. Paul, Minnesota, as an infant. He began writing and performing lyrics during his youth, ultimately establishing a career as a prominent competitive battle rapper and underground hip-hop artist.
Larsen's interest in creative expression began early; family accounts note that he composed poetry in kindergarten and formed a mock band with childhood friends using makeshift instruments. As he grew older, his independent streak often put him at odds with school and institutional authority. This same resistance carried into his music career, steering him away from mainstream industry structures and toward the underground scene.
He attended Highland Park Senior High School in St. Paul, where he began performing in local talent shows and rap battles. Larsen started rapping at fourteen, and by seventeen he won the 1999 Scribble Jam freestyle tournament. In 2000, at age nineteen, he added victories at both HBO's Blaze Battle and the Rock Steady Anniversary competition to his record, establishing himself as one of the era's top freestyle MCs.
In 2001, Eyedea & Abilities — a duo formed with St. Paul DJ and producer Gregory "Max" Keltgen (DJ Abilities) — released their debut studio album, First Born, which introduced themes of existential philosophy and introspective narratives to Larsen's lyrics. The inclusion of the single "Big Shots" on the soundtrack for the 2002 video game Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 introduced him to an international audience. Alongside his collaborative work, Larsen compiled unreleased material written since his mid-teens for a standalone project. In July 2002, he released The Many Faces of Oliver Hart under his solo alias, quickly gaining a dedicated following in the underground scene.
Following a series of victorious rap battles, reports surfaced regarding interest from major record labels, including an offer from Bad Boy Records, which Larsen declined. He maintained his focus on the independent sector, distributing his work through Minneapolis-based Rhymesayers Entertainment and his own imprint, Crushkill Recordings. During this period, he also joined the underground collective The Orphanage alongside rappers Slug, Aesop Rock, Blueprint, and Illogic. The loose collaboration recorded a small body of work that remains officially unreleased, before Eyedea & Abilities released their sophomore studio album, E&A, in March 2004.
In 2006, Larsen shifted focus away from hip-hop to pursue other genres. He formed the indie-punk band Carbon Carousel, releasing the studio EP The Some of All Things, or: The Healing Power of Scab Picking, and led the improvisational jazz-rap ensemble Face Candy, which debuted with the live-recorded album This Is Where We Were. During this period, he also partnered with visual artist Louis N. LaPierre to produce Once A Queen… Always A Creep (2007), a limited-edition art and poetry book handmade in a run of eighty copies sold during tours. The work drew mixed responses from longtime fans. He was also dealing privately with depression, anxiety, and insomnia severe enough that sleep had become a recurring problem.
Eyedea & Abilities reunited in 2008 to record their third studio album, By the Throat. Released on July 21, 2009, the project integrated the raw, live-instrumentation energy of Larsen's recent rock and jazz projects with the duo's established hip-hop structures. The album debuted at #9 on Billboard's Heatseekers Albums chart and received significant critical acclaim, marking a major stylistic evolution for the group. It proved to be their final collaboration.
On October 16, 2010, at age twenty-eight, Larsen was found dead in his St. Paul apartment by his mother. The Ramsey County Medical Examiner ruled the death an accident resulting from opiate toxicity. Following the release of the report, his mother, Kathy Averill, clarified that Larsen was not a habitual drug user or addict, emphasizing that his death was an isolated accident involving a toxic level of prescribed sleep medication rather than a systemic dependency.
The local music scene rallied to honor him. On November 9, 2010 — what would have been Larsen's twenty-ninth birthday — a capacity crowd gathered at First Avenue's Mainroom in Minneapolis for a memorial celebration featuring prominent figures from the Twin Cities hip-hop scene. Commemorative tributes have continued in the years since: a park bench in St. Paul's Cherokee Park was dedicated on October 16, 2011, and a mural was painted on the side of his grandfather's Como Avenue auto garage in October 2018.
Since his death, Larsen's estate has issued portions of his extensive archive, including unpublished poetry and unreleased recordings. He never signed to a major label, never chased a crossover moment, and left behind a body of work that still circulates on its own terms.