Run the Jewels: Music for Protesting
Killer Mike, El-P have hit the moment, with anger vulnerability
BY STEVE ERICKSON
Just in time for the biggest
protests in the US
since 1968, the hip-hop
duo Run the Jewels have
given us the soundtrack for running
to the barricades. As with
their last album, “RTJ3,” which
came out only a few weeks before
Trump’s inauguration, the entirety
of “RTJ4” could have been written
after the protests following George
Floyd’s murder. (Vulture ran an article
titled “7 Prescient Lyrics From
Run the Jewels’ ‘RTJ4.’”)
The opening song on “RTJ4,”
Yankee and the Braze,” continues
their “revolutionary but gangsta”
stance, with Killer Mike contemplating
a shootout with cops and
El-P rapping, “All of us targeted, all
we doin’ is arguin’… I’m ready to
mob on these fuckin’ charlatans.”
(To spoil the narrative, it ends with
one dead cop.)
More than ever, Run the Jewels
balance that kind of politically
charged boasting, with vulnerability
and a desire to reveal the people
behind the personae. The narrative
of “Yankee and the Brave”
is framed as a TV episode, with a
voice-over by rock musician Matt
Sweeney, and the album returns to
this concept in its fi nal moments.
This album’s best songs —
“Walking in the Snow,” “Pulling the
Pin,” “ A Few Words for the Firing
Squad (Radiation)” — mount blistering
assaults on white supremacy,
the media, America’s educational
system, slacktivism, and the
hypocrisy of Trump’s evangelical
supporters while crying out about
the toll of living in such an oppressive
world.
Run the Jewels have done something
unprecedented in hip-hop
history: fi nding success in middle
age after El-P and Killer Mike
spent years playing to small audiences
as solo artists and with
other groups. Outkast introduced
Killer Mike on “Snappin’ and Trappin’
“ and their Grammy-winning
“The Whole World,” but his debut
solo album was disappointing.
Killer Mike’s increasingly political
Just as its previous album “RTJ3” was perfectly timed to Donald Trump’s inauguration, Run the Jewel’s
new “RTJ4” is music for the current wave of protests.
direction got ignored till “R.A.P.
Music,” entirely produced by El-P.
That rapper/ producer helped kickstart
the notion of underground
hip-hop in the ‘90s with the group
Company Flow and his indie label
Defi nitive Jux. But at the time Run
the Jewels formed, Defi nitive Jux
had gone out of business and El-P
was feeling desperate. The group’s
ethos returns to late ‘80s and early
‘90s hip-hop, when hardcore rap
still had a political conscience.
“Holy Calamafuck” fl ips a
dancehall reggae sample into a
beat like hearing tanks storm
through Brooklyn. While El-P’s capable
of making slow, spare beats,
as on “Ju$t,” he’s always been inclined
toward noisy soundscapes
that suggest analog synthesizers
hooked up to overloaded distortion
pedals. Signing to a major label got
them a larger budget for sampling,
but their sound hasn’t changed.
The group sticks to a dynamic
where Killer Mike takes the lead as
their spokesperson, both brasher
and more inclined toward political
activism.
“A Few Words For The Firing
Squad (Radiation)” ends the album
by getting even more introspective,
with Killer Mike recalling the pain
of his mother’s death and the selfdestructive
BMG
behavior it led to. The
song’s structure is long and jazzy,
with a two-minute instrumental
coda featuring saxophone and
strings.
Run the Jewels released “Yankee
and the Brave” and “Ooh La
La” simultaneously as the fi rst two
singles from “RTJ4.” The latter received
a more positive response.
Based on a sample from Gang
Starr and Nice & Smooth, it’s fi lled
with joyful shit-talking and references
to ‘90s hip-hop. The music
video fl ips around the violence and
despair of “Yankee and the Brave.”
Set on a downtown city block, it
imagines a post-capitalist utopia
where money burns on a bonfi re,
inmates dance freely in the street,
and champagne fl ows. Right now,
it takes on a deeper meaning: the
collective celebration it depicts was
impossible to take place due to
COVID lockdown, and only the urgency
of protest has made people
willing to risk getting together at
this time.
Run the Jewels’ music has often
been described as dystopian. “Stepfather
Factory,” the most striking
song on El-P’s debut solo album,
imagined a sci-fi world of abusive,
alcoholic robot parents. Given the
futuristic feel of his production, it’s
MUSIC
fi tting that he was in consideration
to compose the score of “Blade
Runner 2049.” But as individuals
and a group, he and Killer Mike
have always been talking about
the world in front of us. It couldn’t
be more glaringly obvious than on
“RTJ4,” a truer picture of American
life than you’ll get from cable news.
Run the Jewels are great at bragging
about what tough guys they
are, but they also show how such
posing works as a hedge against
pain.
“RTJ4” isn’t being released into
a vacuum. The past two weeks’
protests have led to a resurgence
in hip-hop protest songs, recorded
quickly in response, with YG’s
“FTP” and Terrace Martin, Denzel
Curry, Kamasi Washington, G Perico,
and Daylyt’s “Pig Feet” being
the best. They join recent songs recorded
slightly earlier addressing
the systemic problems with American
police: Polo G’s “Wishing For a
Hero,” City Morgue’s “ACAB,” and
Freddie Gibbs, The Alchemist &
Rick Ross’ “Scottie Beam.”
We’ve also seen several excellent
underground hip-hop albums.
Ka’s “Descendants of Cain” looks
back on his youth in crack-ridden
Brooklyn from a literary perspective
with the book of Genesis as a
fi lter. Trans rapper Backxwash’s
“God Had Nothing To Do With It So
Leave Him Out Of It,” tells her personal
path toward self-acceptance
using occult imagery and samples
from Black Sabbath, Patti Smith,
and Led Zeppelin. Armand Hammer’s
“Sirens” comes close to being
musique concrètewith a beat.
At worst, becoming the most popular
genre of music in the US led
mainstream hip-hop to the materialistic
bloat of ‘70s rock music just
before punk. But its underground
remains diverse and burgeoning,
and one hopes the present circumstances
lead more popular artists
to branch out toward politics. The
urgency of “RTJ4” defi es stereotypes
about corny “conscious rap”
that really challenges nothing.
RUN THE JEWELS| “RTJ4” | BMG
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