In a world where hip hop culture is prominent and DJ Mustard beats run rampant, Atlanta MC Killer Mike and New York MC/producer El-P join forces to create Run the Jewels, a duo whose music is hard to classify as anything other than “alternative.” Regardless of what box you try to put Run the Jewels into, these veterans of the game are making waves in the diluted landscape of modern hip hop. While their self-titled debut introduced underground heads to a new sound from some familiar faces, Run the Jewels 2 goes for the throat and proves that Killer Mike and El-P are here to stay.
By Killer Mike’s opening statements on “Jeopardy,” most likely a gem pulled from the studio before a verse recording, we know we are in for an album that is going to be hard. And by God do we get punched in the mouth. The looping vocal samples on “Oh My Darling Don’t Cry” and “Close Your Eyes (And Count to Fuck)” take some time to settle in, but they quickly become a key element of the album’s identity and they contribute to one of the best starts to an album in recent memory. RTJ2 loses a bit of the steam moving on past the project’s first four tracks, but it picks up again with their Travis Barker collaboration, “All Due Respect.” The track following, “Love Again (Akinyele Back),” might be dirtier than any song Ty Dolla $ign or The Weeknd will ever write.
Across the album, it feels as though Killer Mike dominates lyrically and flow-wise over El-P, but this can be balanced out by the fact that El-P’s presence is felt constantly through his production. Additionally, there aren’t any remarkable hooks that listeners can hold on to (unlike, for example, many of ScHoolboy Q’s Oxymoron singles), but this merely serves as a point arguing the sheer quality of the verses spit on the album and how choruses are hardly necessary. Only the realest of the real fans will be able to spit along with Run the Jewels at their shows, and that’s probably the way they’d prefer it to be.
On “All Due Respect,” Killer Mike spits: “Imma beat you to a pulp, no fiction/Tarantino flow new Jules and Vincent,” subsequently establishing the sphere that Run the Jewels exists in. Much like a film directed by Quentin Tarantino, RTJ2 is not for everybody. Many may not understand its quality, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t get the respect it deserves. Stop sleeping. Get enlightened. Listen to this album. All at the same damn time. RTJ.
RTJ2