El-P and Killer Mike are no strangers to dropping bars, but the surprising regularity of top-tier quotable and “D*MN!” eliciting punchlines still manage to stun. Speaking of hot potatoes (and fiery verses), there is a whole lot of fantastic rapping on this record. As much as I’d love to give a track-by-track of all RTJ2’s of accolades, I’ll have to stick to the highlights so this review stays under 20 pages: “All Due Respect” follows a sliced screaming lead into a wailing monstrosity of an instrumental, “Close Your Eyes (And Count To F**k)” injects itself with the energy of an infectious Zach De La Rocha sample (and guest verse), and “Blockbuster Night Part 1” relies on the duo’s trading of fiery verses like dangerously hot potatoes. Oh My Darling’s glitchy vocal sampling gives way to a nasty bass rotation that demands to be blasted from car speakers. This explosive opener followed up my “Oh My Darling Don’t Cry”, creating one of the best one-two punches in recent rap memory. “Jeopardy” introduces the album with a sinister bass line, a beat with a rising sense of tension, and a furious verse from Killer Mike that tosses any notion of humble rhymes through the stained glass window when he declares “Me, I might be the closest representation of god that you might see”. Run the Jewels 2 is their sophomore effort, and it carries on this tradition with even more conviction than its predecessor. Shortly thereafter, the two developed a friendship strong enough to make them a tag team force, and since then they’ve been putting out heavy-handed hip-hop with an emphasis on aggressively bassy beats and aggressively bossy bars.
#Close your eyes and count run the jewle plus#
It all started in 2012, when legendary hip-hop producer and rapper El-P (If Cannibal Ox, Fantastic Damage, or Funcrusher Plus ring any bells you know why he’s a big deal) united with aggressive spitter Killer Mike for the jaw-dropping R.A.P Music. The word “bangs” perfectly encompasses everything Run the Jewels is and what they are trying to be. Most recently, both members sat with preteens for a video in which they talked about topics ranging from weed to jail.Run the Jewels 2 bangs. I am not convinced.” Days later, he contributed to an op-ed about rap lyrics and the justice system. And, in November, when a grand jury revealed it would not be indicting the police officer who shot Brown, Mike tweeted, “I have seen many times a suspect run, get tired and turn around to surrender.
Killer Mike wrote a powerful essay about the Michael Brown shooting last August. The members of Run the Jewels have long been open about their feelings regarding the abuse of authority. “That we resonate with what we know to be right and we don’t numb ourselves out so those feelings can simply be swept away, we must confront them and take some action, however small, or we’ll be stuck in the same cycle of violence and hate.” “I believe that it is important that the way we feel when we see these events in real life has an effect on us,” Rojas wrote. The scenario led to what he described as an “emotional shoot day” that affected the crew and actors (Shea Whigham of Boardwalk Empire and and Keith Stanfield of Selma and the forthcoming N.W.A biopic Straight Outta Compton). “Our goal was to highlight the futility of the violence, not celebrate it,” he wrote. Rojas tasked himself with creating characters that were not stereotypes, but complex individuals each stymied by their own clumsiness. However, there is an opportunity to dialogue and change the way communities are policed in this country.” “There is no neat solution at the end because there is no neat solution in the real world. “This video represents the futile and exhausting existence of a purgatory-like law enforcement system,” Killer Mike said in a statement.
It’s a unique scene for the Run the Jewels 2 song in which Killer Mike raps, “When you niggas gon’ unite and kill the police, motherfuckas?” Throughout it all, neither character reaches for the policeman’s gun. A white policeman tussles with an unarmed black man in the video for Run the Jewels and Zack de la Rocha’s new video, “Close Your Eyes (And Count to Fuck),” echoing the recent high-profile police-versus-civilian deaths including Michael Brown and Eric Garner.Īfter brief cameos by the three rappers, the clip’s two protagonists square off, tackle one another and wrestle around in a heated showdown that lasts until nightfall…and into a residence…and into more private quarters within the home.
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