Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 3

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Long gone are the days when El-P’s music was not inextricably linked with his politics. There are two narratives that help chart the Run the Jewels success story and one of them involves the fierce vein of protest that courses through their music. It ebbs and flows in terms of its specificity - from broadly railing against fuckboys to eviscerating police brutality, government corruption and social inequality - but irrespective of the target, the ever-aloft middle finger is a crucial part of the RTJ DNA. Beyond the records, Killer Mike’s erudition on the political topics has led to appearances on CNN, and his well-documented support of Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign since Run the Jewels 2 has only cemented his group’s reputation as a hip hop pairing who have viscerally rejected the status quo.

The other recurring theme is one of triumph against adversity through little other than grit and perseverance; when Run the Jewels dropped back in 2013, both men were on the cusp of their forties and could have been forgiven for having doubts about whether their best work still lay ahead of them. The bloodied, bandaged hands on the cover of RTJ2 symbolised the years of struggle, with critical acclaim plentiful but commercial success at a premium; it’s telling, then, that when the hands return on the artwork for Run the Jewels 3, they’re made of solid gold. Long in advance of the cover being revealed, you could’ve predicted they’d go down that route; neither El nor Mike are shy of interviews or social media and by the end of the RTJ2 press cycle it was abundantly clear that they knew their time had come.

All of which is to say that it perhaps felt as if the element of surprise might be lacking a little on RTJ3, particularly in terms of its thematic content; the sensible money would’ve predicted plenty of talk about success, as well as a doubling down of the ferocity of their political bent, given the myriad, chaotic landscape changes that have occurred in the two years since their last record. Sonically, though, they open in genuinely disarming fashion; ‘Down’ might be as close to serenity as the duo have ever come, with Mike even floating a smooth, part-sung hook over El’s languid beat - when the latter proclaims "you’re going to need a bigger boat”, it comes off more casual observation than menacing premonition.

Inevitably, though, it proves the calm before the storm. Claustrophobic intensity was the name of the game on RTJ2; this time out, El swaps it for a much less singular approach to the production, one where the only real throughline is a clattering boisterousness. He’s granted himself some real stylistic freedom, and it leads to some of the standout moments of his career behind the desk. ‘Talk to Me’ and ‘Legend Has It’ channel an old-school grandiosity on the beats, ‘2100’ weaves in a guitar that’s melodic on the verses and then squealing over BOOTS’ hook, and the standout ‘Oh Mama’ is a delicious funk strut, with the synths squelching one minute before approximating trumpets the next. Speaking of brass - look out for Kamasi Washington’s spaced-out sax on ‘Thursday in the Danger Room’, another highlight.

RTJ2 never really eased its foot off the accelerator at any point and, by way of comparison, RTJ3 isn’t quite as breakneck. Similarly, neither rapper responds to the turmoil of 2016 simply with blind rage; there’s a sense of measure to their ripostes, whether from Mike on ‘2100’ (“you defeat the devil when you hold on to hope”) or El on closer ‘A Report to the Shareholders’ (“we both hear the same sound coming, and it sounds like war.”) Meanwhile, ‘Thieves! (Screamed the Ghost)’ feels remarkably measured for what is, in essence, a pro-riot anthem, even on Mike’s scything post-Ferguson verse (“dummy don’t know and dummy don’t care” is his analysis of widely-derided CNN host Don Lemon.)

This is what makes Run the Jewels tick; the fact that there’s room for clear, sober eyes alongside, say, the ludicrous bragfests of ‘Stay Gold’ and ‘Call Ticketron’ (the latter, perhaps not unreasonably, predicts a Madison Square Garden headline show in the not-too-distant future). They can turn the politics all the way up to incendiary when they want to - ‘Hey Kids (Bumaye)’ is blisteringly aggressive in every respect - and yet still find room to goof off; El proclaiming himself the “nut punch wizard” on ‘Everybody Stay Calm’ is up there with the line about running backwards naked through a field of dicks on RTJ2.

Maybe it’s that dichotomy that makes Run the Jewels the most exciting prospect hip hop currently has, even in an age when Kendrick is revolutionising the genre, when Kanye is redefining the word megalomania and when Chance the Rapper is leading a vanguard of new talent for whom classic LPs look like a foregone conclusion. What none of those can offer, though, is the increasingly unshakeable feeling that the two decades’ worth of hard yards that Mike and El put in is what makes RTJ so special. Nobody fresh out of the blocks could ever make a record this vital sound quite so effortless. That’s the only issue with RTJ3; the sense of triumph occasionally spills into self-satisfaction, and the next stop would be complacency. This is an album that could easily be subtitled Mission Accomplished, but for once, it feels like bowing out on top would be ill-advised. That, in itself, is quite the compliment.

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On 2006’s “That’s Life,” Killer Mike boasted “You’d be hard-pressed to find another rapper smart as me,” opening up about Cornel West and Michael Eric Dyson, poverty, respectability politics, and civil rights, before taking on both Bush Administrations (“George Bush don’t like blacks … and his daddy CIA had flooded the hood with rock”). A few months later, El-P was waging war with the same enemy in the 9/11 conspiracy theory thriller “Run the Numbers,” concluding that “it always comes back to a Bush.” The two songs sounded very little alike, but the music (and the rappers) shared a similar fire and presence: confident, conspiratorial, no-holds-barred, and razor-sharp. Neither were likely to be deemed “political” rappers then, but both were already dissenters and nonconformists; independent artists signed to themselves, free thinkers shooting off at the mouth.

Nearly a decade after airing out the Bush family, the duo, as Run the Jewels, have found a creative renaissance. The group’s latest self-titled album, Run the Jewels 3, is a well timed, finely tuned rap epic that confronts the ruling class (here addressed as “the masters”) with deadly precision; it’s rap as resistance.With a demagogue waiting in the wings to assume the presidency, their particular Molotov mix of explosive shit-talking and unfiltered insubordination feels vital.

Their interplay is instinctual this time around; the songs move and shuffle with its MCs intuitively trading bars, filling the gaps in each others’ phrases, and feeding off each others’ energies, using their booming voices to cut through the startling noises of a future dystopia. “Poor folk love us the rich hate our faces/We talk too loud, won't remain in our places,” El-P raps on “Everybody Stay Calm.” They’re both observers who refuse to sugarcoat. “I just try my best, man, to say something about the shit I see,” Killer Mike told The New Republic in 2015. “Because I don’t want to go crazy. I don’t want to be walking around angry and feeling rage.” To that end, RTJ3 isn’t a response or reaction, it’s a preemptive strike, laying the groundwork for the battleground ahead.

Their methods remain consistent, but the stakes have been raised over the years. RTJ1 was a fun experiment; RTJ2 was a classicist statement, and now RTJ3 is a reckoning. Many of these songs have more urgency than before; If RTJ2 was the music of protest, then this is the music of revolt. In that way, RTJ3 is essentially the Run the Jewels manifesto, an outpouring of rage and defiance that is never overcome by the moment and never loses sight of the objectives: rallying the troops, holding everyone accountable (from lawmakers, to other rappers, to Don Lemon and themselves), and toppling oppression wherever it may reign (on “Thieves! (Screamed the Ghost),” El-P raps, “Fear’s been law for so long rage feels like therapy”). “Thursday in the Danger Room” peers into the duo's personal turmoil and their shared history, and on “2100” Killer Mike lays out their President-Trump survival strategy: “You defeat the devil when you hold onto hope.”

The key to RTJ3 is closer “A Report to the Shareholders,” which is plainspoken about the duo’s message and intent: “Maybe that’s why me and Mike get along / Not from the same part of town, but we both hear the same sound coming / And it sounds like war.” Seconds later, Killer Mike goes full Malcolm X: “Choose the lesser of the evil people, and the devil still gon’ win / It could all be over tomorrow, kill our masters and start again.” This is the ire of a group that’s tired of saying I told you so.

This is by far the best produced record of their trilogy, with beats that find new and interesting ways to wreak havoc. “Call Ticketron” turns automated ticketing technology into a beacon for alien transmissions. On “Hey Kids (Bumaye)” crackling static and thumping bass crater open to reveal whirring, wobbling tones and ghostly whispers, and Danny Brown slots in an exceptional guest verse. On “Panther Like a Panther (Miracle Mix),” furnished by the shouts of Miami rap goddess Trina, rounded blips mimic the patter of hand drums before bursting into a wave of buzzing, distorted noise that slowly dissipates back into nothing. They’re still clearly having fun doing this and it’s still fun to listen to them work.

It isn’t quite as punchy as RTJ2, which was brutish in its tactics, with nonstop bangs and thrills, but RTJ3 is a triumph in its own right that somehow celebrates the success of a seemingly unlikely friendship and mourns the collapse of a nation all at once. “Thieves! (Screamed the Ghost),” a song about riots as a response to violence as opposed to a means to create it, samples an iconic Martin Luther King, Jr. quote from the 1967 speech “The Other America”: “A riot is the language of the unheard.” In keeping with that idea, RTJ3 is a soundtrack for the riots to come.

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(Mass Appeal)

“When I started this band, didn’t see no plans,” says El-P on this album’s double-headed closer. “Just run with the craft, have a couple of laughs, make a buck and dash.”

Related: Killer Mike leads the pack of rappers-turned-politicians running for office