The hip hop duo Run the Jewels (comprised of rapper/producer El-P and rapper Killer Mike) have always been a cartoonish reflection of American culture but as their albums have progressed, their socio-political message has become increasingly more biting. Released early in the midst of Black Lives Matter riots across the world, RTJ4 might be one of the most relevant, hard-hitting, cutting pieces of political commentary the duo have released.
One of Run the Jewels’ greatest strengths is their ability to weave tracks and themes together to create emotionally dense narratives. We see this on the opening track ‘Yankee and the brave (ep. 4)’ where El-P and Killer Mike are in an imaginary shootout with a gang of cops. It’s an over-exaggerated, frantic, and cartoonish way to illustrate how the duo feel that the law is out to get them. However, further down the tracklist, reality shows its face. On ‘walking in the snow’ Killer Mike raps: “every day on the evening news they feed you fear for free / And you so numb you watch the cops choke out a man like me and ’til my voice goes from a shriek to whisper, I can’t breathe / and you sit there in the house on couch and watch it on TV, / the most you give is a Twitter rant and call it a tragedy”. These lyrics were written about Eric Garner but the passage can be directly applied to the late George Floyd who was also killed by police officers only cementing the point further.
By continually playing very contrasting elements off each other helps Run the Jewels satirise the world we live in. On ‘JU$T’ (Featuring Pharell Williams and Zack de la Rocha) the four MCs muse over how even though slavery is abolished, African Americans still live in a system designed to make their lives harder and even if they beat it they’ll still have “slave masters” posing on their dollar. This hook directly references how Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Grant and Franklin all had at least one slave at some point. All of this ire is juxtaposed by the bouncy, laidback trap beat.
The production on this album is one of its strongest, most defining features. Throughout the 11 tracks we are treated to snare drums that hit your ears like shotgun blasts, rubbery 808 kicks, modulated distorted basslines, detuned pianos, rising dramatic strings and everything in between; Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age even lends his fuzzy guitar tones to a track on the back end of the album. On ‘out of sight’ (featuring 2 chainz) El-P brings the swagger of 00s bling era hip-hop with a mutated Foster Sylvers sample but never lets the instrumental feel dated. ‘The ground below’ is a highlight, it has the energy of a scrappy 70s punk song (helped in part by the Gang of Four sample) but the hard-hitting beat makes every syncopated hit feel like a meteor slamming into earth.
There are arguably some lulls in the tracklist where the duo seem to fall back on ideas and themes that are quite comfortable to them, however, the punchy songs that all barrel into each other and the tight 39 minute run time means that no idea ever gets tired. The highlight of the album comes in the form of the penultimate track: ‘pulling the pin (featuring Josh Homme and Mavis Staples)’ where the aforementioned humour that helped make the other issues so much easier to digest is stripped away. We are left with an extremely blunt, cutting and out for blood El-P & Killer Mike who relentlessly rap about the evils of capitalism and the hopeless, immoral situation it has left us. El-P ends his verse saying “Eat your heart out, fiction fan / truly the truth’s the stranger document” candidly echoing the overarching theme of the album: these are well and truly unnerving times and that this isn’t normal.
Although the duo may not be reinventing the wheel on RTJ4 they have continued to refine and build on their sound and in doing so created their most cohesive project to date. Run The Jewels have yet to release a bad album.
8/10
Words by Tom Baker