Run the Jewels is a collaboration between Brooklyn veteran rapper/producer El-P and Southern stalwart Killer Mike. They came up through vastly different channels. El-P was the definition of backpack-rap in the 90's with the seminal group Company Flow, while Killer Mike was anointed out the gate having found affiliation with Outkast and Goodie Mob at the peak of their powers.
After linking up a couple years ago, El-P hit the boards hard. He dominated the Hip-Hop landscape last year by lacing both his and Mike's solo albums with stellar productions like 'Big Beast' and 'Drones over Brooklyn'.
Following the critical praise of both Cancer for Cure and Mike's R.A.P. Music the two had struck up such a firm friendship they decided to tour together and put together this album.
As for the music itself, it sounds a lot better than a free collabo album rightfully should. Title Track 'Run the Jewels' leads off the album and sets the tone for the other 9 tracks. No nonsense Hip-Hop with with aggressively boastful lyrics. It jumps out of the gate with amped guitar lines, hard drums and sinister synths. They double down on the braggadocio with '36 Chain', a straight up banger with what sounds like someone playing bells in a tunnel deep in the mix and some nasty drums.
'DDFH' slows the pace a little but ups the intensity and paranoia, and even includes a chorus (although 'Hey Hey Hey' hardly constitutes a hook). 'Sea Legs' opens with swirling Bollywood arpeggio's and finger snaps with El-P sliding in just before a sub-Timberland drum pattern kicks up the pace. Mike comes out fighting, declaring "I rival your idols" among a litany of other boasts and threats.
'Job Well Done' sees the boys looking back over the waste they've laid over their careers, and everyone from men to women, monks to dolphins gets it. It's a lap of honor after surviving a war and "walking through the ashes, saying 'didnt we do well'?". Killer Mike uses 'No Come Down' as an excuse to tell a story about getting so high that he "Traveled to the moon", made love to a woman and came back to earth to find out they were brother and sister. Must have been a crazy trip.
'Get it' is about just that, and while the dexterous El-P dreams about the simple life, one filled with "the company of women with opinions and fat asses", Mike is still in angry mode, unleashing on Catholics, Cops and Goofy rappers.
In the end, there's no real concept to this album, other than two rap vets in their prime throwing heat over some of the winters hottest beats. So good, you almost feel bad getting it for free. In their own words, go get it.
Get the album HERE for free.
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