Run The Jewels - El-P and Killer Mike

Haven't enjoyed an artist profile as much as I enjoyed that RS piece in a long time. Great work on that; fantastic read

(I think my problem with RTJ boils down to: indifference to El-P's production choices; so much of what's there feels flattened out in a way that the entirety of the songs slip past me or something.)

(That said, love the backstory, the reviews, and the features. Wish the actual music inspired the same excitement.)

yeah the RS article was a great read (just joining the complimentary bandwagon here)

Thank you, Evan and ama!

yeah good stuff.

woke up in a cold sweat worried that someone may try to step to me at the show on monday (in the same college town where I just towed 15 motherfuckers' cars outta my parking lot on Halloween night)

someone please reassure me that all fans of this group are actually pussies, thx

P sure you will remain unsunned

no wait the other kind, unsonned, tho i imagine it will be a pale crowd

I'm just glad the club I'm seeing them at doesn't allow Hulk Hands

Watch out for white boys with AOL beefs

Thoroughly late to this but, Whiney, your piece on this is amongst the best music writing I've read all year, thanks! <3

yeah it's excellent. between that and 'Aphex and his friend talking shit over email' an entertaining few days for longass music writing

thanks guys!

i was cleaning the kitchen and listening to this and it made me feel totally grandiose, like in a good way.
i think oh my darling is my favorite track but it's hard to choose.

oh my

great article, whiney

haha

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2M1CDPIEAAhhj_.jpg

Really love this album, much more than the first one

Love that One Direction fans cross over with this album.

Yes, it's still crap.

the show on saturday was really fun although i gotta say that "love again" was missing a crucial verse without gangsta boo there

Yeah, her presence on that track is kinda the point, no?

xxpost oh raccoon you have so many more reasons to hate me than you even realise.

such a great year for gangsta boo

I posted this in the Michael Brown thread but seriously watch this speech by Killer Mike last night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQs7CWKHM9w&app=desktop

^^^
chills, seriously

killer mike for president

mike/el 2016

i look forward to the philip k dick-inspired campaign literature

I thought of Ferguson when I heard Early. Mike is such a mensch.

mike/el 2016

would buy a well-designed tshirt w/ this concept

tbrr i want to go to this show over and over again
seriously i danced the entire time and my feet hurt the next day
killer mike for president

oh wow you were there???

no, i was at the show in chicago on saturday, not last night!
i wish i had followed them to StL
also forgot to mention that they did "get it" just as i had hoped and it was awesome

I would like to give all thoughts and prayers to the people out there peacefully protesting. and I also give thoughts and prayers who could not hold their anger in, because riots are only the language of the unheard

straight out of church

OTM

going saturday, second time seeing them; first was as killer mike/el p in 2012 and was awesome
very psyched

a month later i may like this better than the first one!

Also:
http://noisey.vice.com/blog/killer-mike-interview-ferguson

StillAdvance, the whole "these guys come from two different worlds" element that you think is the appeal got people to pay attention to R.A.P. Music MAYBE

If you don't think the appeal of the RTJ albums are more about what they have in COMMON, then i don't know what to tell you

― ILOVEMASONNA (Whiney G. Weingarten), Saturday, 25 October 2014 15:17 (1 month ago) Permalink

this is very otm

sure. but its a bit like a buddy movie. two guys... from different backgrounds... who have come together to fight a common cause. think of run the jewels as being like a rap lethal weapon or 48 hours. ;)

Rap lethal weapon would have to star Iggy Azalea and Foxy Brown

in RTJ' case, both of them are 'too old for this shit'.

but my point is just that yes, they have stuff in common, ie being older than most rappers, being in love with the 80s/with PE, having similar views on 'what rap is meant to be', both have been underdogs in different ways, both are now experiencing bigger success for the first time together, etc etc, but in spite of all that, they are from v diff worlds and backgrounds (as that RS piece makes obvious), and honestly, their audience is def not blind to that, never mind the racial make up of the group. it gives el-p a certain street element which he hasnt had before (even allowing for the fact he appears as a typical new york hardass), and gives mike a certain indie cred, which he didnt really have before either. in other words, theyre the perfect rap couple.

my impression is that the RtJ audience is more of an expanded version of el-p's old audience than a real crossover with what had been the core of mike's audience. but who knows.

well yeah, the audience is mostly el-p's, but i think its a lot of people who previously didnt like def jux too, ppl who thought they were too nerdy or underground or whatever, and like el-p more now cos he sounds like straighter hip hop.

lotta ppl who would necessarily know about a p hardcore southern street rapper knew about killer mike because of how prominently he was pushed and featured on outkast though, and mike was already a bit more skewed towards traditional NYC skills type rapping anyway it's not like this is sage francis and lil' boosie formed a group

cant decide whether sage/boosie would be cool or awful, leaning toward at least half awful

i meant "wouldn't" necessarily know obv (xpost)

my impression is that the RtJ audience is more of an expanded version of el-p's old audience than a real crossover with what had been the core of mike's audience. but who knows.

― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, November 26, 2014 10:23 AM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Having spent a lot of time with dudes, I get the sense that the audience is like, some older Def Jux heads, some folks who built with Mike along the Pledge series, and mostly young people approaching both of them for the first time

Mike's first (and last) major label/OutKast-endorsed album was 2003. He spent the following decade slowly building an indie hustle

yeah good point i mean i'm sure lots of the audience wouldn't know funcrusher plus if it bit them in the ass