“Fuck it, why wait. The world is infested with bullshit so here’s something raw to listen to while you deal with it all.”
Returning with their 4th studio LP, RTJ4, the rap duo offer a plethora of slogans to empower the Black Lives Matter movement as of late - forcibly continuing the revolutionary nature of their musical ancestors. Their latest could yet set another benchmark in their genre's history.
Over the past century of popular music, black artists and their relative social movement have echoed one another. From Billie Holiday’s description of “black bodies swingin’ in the Southern breeze, strange fruit hangin’ from the poplar trees” in 1939, to 1971’s statement from Gil Scott-Heron that ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ - the turmoil of the African American experience has been stood the test of time through this popular medium. Dating back to 2015, the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement denoted rapper Kendrick Lamar’s mantra “we gon’ be alright” as their fortified slogan - yet now finding itself seething with rage at the death of George Floyd and many other innocent African Americans in 2020. Here enters the rap-duo virtuoso - Run The Jewels’ Killer Mike and El-P spilling spur-of-the-moment, rap-embedded messages from every orifice of their abrasive repertoire.
In our current embattled state, witnessing the stacking evidence against police brutality and institutionalised racism in society, here Run The Jewels delve deeper into the poignancy of their genre’s ancestry. “Cues to the evenin’ news, make sure you ill-advised, got you celebration the generators of genocide” elicited in ‘Goonies vs. E.T.’ harks back to Scott-Heron’s declaration made 50 years prior - a strict call to scrutinise the coverage of televised news. Killer Mike goes a step further, though, equating his duo's force of nature to the politicised 80’s hip-hop group, Wu-Tang Clan, in the midst of braggadocious boom-bap rhythmics seared by George Nice and DJ Premier’s features on ‘Ooh La La’.
This album, however, isn’t merely a collection of throwbacks to hip hop’s ‘Golden Era’, but rather a platform from which to stage more recent pioneers, too, a-la Zack de la Rocha and Pharrell Williams on ‘Just’. Consistently performing a precarious juggling act between the brash sounds of old and the polished sounds of new, Run The Jewels seamlessly cross these paths with a helping hand from Williams’ slick productional prowess and Rocha’s foaming rampage within such calls as “look at all these slave masters posin’ on your dollar”. Bearing all of these seminal influences into a 39 minute-listening experience proves laudable to say the least.
Run The Jewels aren’t exactly rap's spring chickens either, with their 4th LP release in 7 years, as well as reaching their mid-40’s, both have sharpened their focus and condensed much of the lagging content impeding their previous discography. Whilst length of a certain project doesn’t always equate to boredom, it can largely influence passive listening - but this is far from the case here. Concise, personal vignettes exposing El-P and Killer Mike’s backgrounds in ‘Pulling the Pin’ as well as some eerily poignant lyricism in ‘Walking in the Snow’ solidifies this LP’s gravitas further.
“Till my voice goes, “I can’t breathe”, the most you give’s a Twitter rant and call it a tragedy.”
The line which many are cherry-picking, comes from Killer Mike in the latter track - aptly depicting our current desensitised state to everyday violence and social media inaction, “till my voice goes, “I can’t breathe”, the most you give’s a Twitter rant and call it a tragedy”. Rounding-off an abrasive half-hour, the duo intriguingly dip into a different territory on the latter track, enlisting the 60’s political activist Mavis Staples for a simmering speech, as well as Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme on production credentials. Conveying a comparatively softer, more translucent sheen, Run The Jewels ooze an unheard-of maturity - one inviting you into every nook and cranny of this besotted society infiltrated by anger, activism, and resilience.
Ultimately, this resilience prevails at the best of times when El-P and Killer Mike work collaboratively - personally embodied by their ‘Yankee and the Brave’ (respective baseball teams) caricature. Given the crescendo of heated emotions by some frenetic tenor sax in the LP’s outro, Run The Jewels successfully conclude a mirroring image of the African American plight of today. Although a couple of weaker tracks spoil the latter half’s closure, this LP should be seen as a benchmark for the current social movement - just like it had been for Kendrick Lamar’s ‘To Pimp a Butterfly’, or Public Enemy’s ‘It Takes a Nation’. With both rappers here exuding their best work yet, spurring each other on and eliciting countless mantras, their embodiment of blacks and whites collaborating against a “world infested with bullshit” proves inspiring, if in dire need for 2020.
8.5/10
Run The Jewels' latest LP, RTJ4, is out now and can be found here.
To learn more about the BLM Movement, and to donate, please click here.
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