Run the Jewels ‘El-P + Killer Mike = Run the Jewels’ (.ZIP)
I don’t know what process lead Atlanta’s Killer Mike from being Big Boi’s side-man to being Brooklynite El-P’s partner in rhyme, but whatever it was it’s resulted in some of the illest Rap music of the last few years.
First came Killer Mike’s entirely El-P-produced masterpiece ‘R.A.P. Music’, which should go down in the annals of Hip-Hop as an undisputed classic, blending gangsta shit with politics like few before.
Now we’ve got ‘Run the Jewels’, an LP from a full-fledged group comprised of the Lyrical Punisher and Killer Mike, which runs the gamut from the usual Def Jux space shit to a song with a guest-verse from Outkast’s Big Boi.
The production splits the difference between El’s classic futuristic b-boy beats and the cybernetic Crunk style he flexed on ‘R.A.P. Music’ and sounds kinda like Trent Reznor remixing Rap records from RUN-DMC to Juicy-J.
Unlike most Indie-Rap, which seems made for headphones, and mainstream Hip-Hop, that’s so overmastered it gives you a headache, this shit really deserves to be bumped at the loudest volume possible in whatever “ride” you can find.
Oh, and remember to “do dope, fuck hope”.
