“Run the Jewels 2” by Run the Jewels

Celebrating the 10th anniversary of one of the hardest hip-hop records of the 21st century.

Hello! 😊👋

Welcome to a new edition of the Best Music of All Time newsletter!

Today’s music pick marks the 10th anniversary of one of the most impressive achievements in 21st-century hip-hop.

Genre: Hip-Hop, Conscious Hip-Hop, Gangsta Rap

Label: Mass Appeal

Release Date: October 24, 2014

Vibe: 😵😵😵

Few, if any, conscious hip-hop records blast out of your speakers or headphones as ferociously as Run the Jewels 2.

Like Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back or Ice Cube’s Amerikkka’s Most Wanted, it puts both sides of the aisle on blast for culture war pearl-clutching. Save for a handful of the genre’s most revered emcees, including the one and only Nasty Nas, whose Mass Appeal imprint distributed this record, and Malcolm X, no one is spared. Produced entirely by El-P (real name: Jaime Meline) and primarily featuring him and Killer Mike (real name: Michael Render) on the mic, the eponymous duo (who, for the sake brevity, I’ll refer to as RTJ from now on) dig their heels in on topics like gentrification, violence against (and perpetrated, in self-defense, by) marginalized groups, classism, the inaction of the privileged, and, of course, whack rappers who can’t hang with them.

The fact that RTJ can back up their bars with the sociopolitical street cred that’s been their calling card is crucial to this record’s success. The world-weariness that informs their writing also traces back to long before their creative partnership. El-P has been in the rap game since the early-90s, contributing to albums by respected underground names like Aesop Rock, Mr. Lif, and Das Racist. After making his studio debut via a cameo on Outkast’s Stankonia, Killer Mike dropped his solo debut in 2003 and has been a critical darling ever since. But, after El-P and Mike swapped collaborations on the former’s LP Cancer 4 Cure and the latter’s R.A.P. Music, both of which dropped in 2012, the stage was set for one of the most fruitful one-two punches in modern music.

Their eponymous debut, initially released as a free download via Fool’s Gold Records, offered a glimpse into the persona RTJ would hone in the years that followed. Tracks like “Sea Legs” are energetic and cutthroat, touching on subject matter like armed robbery, Chinese water torture, and cannibalism—all in the span of three-and-a-half minutes. As compelling as it is, it also feels like a grab bag of ideas meant to pepper the listener with shock-and-awe verbiage. The amount of refinement that took place between the debut and its sequel is pretty astonishing. Run the Jewels 2 is one of the most uncompromising and razor-sharp expressions of activism in modern hip-hop.

Take this moment in “Lie, Cheat, Steal,” a banger that later became the theme music for a Netflix series about the corrupt core of the ruling class:

I love Dr. King but violence might be necessary 'Cause when you live on MLK and it gets very scary You might have to pull your AK, send one to the cemetery We overworked, underpaid, and we underprivileged They love us, they love us (Why?) Because we feed the village You really made it or just became a prisoner of privilege? You willin' to share that information that you've been given?

While other rappers are focused on tales of debauchery or flexing the size of their chains or bank accounts, RTJ can’t be bothered with such frivolity. They’re more concerned with using their platforms to speak out against those so-called “prisoners of privilege,” who are aware of struggles we should collectively be talking about but unwilling to attach their names to such topics. RTJ has been called many things—perpetrators of the “it’s not my problem” mentality isn’t one of them.

One of the most important qualities of Run the Jewels 2 is how it doesn’t let up for a second. The duo doesn’t allow you time to stop and catch your breath. Instead, they hit you with one blunted buzzsaw of a banger after another. Early highlights like “Blockbuster Night Pt. 1” and “Ih My Darling Don’t Cry” build-up to the album’s high-water mark, “Close Your Eyes (And Count to F***).” A gut punch of a treatise about police brutality, it features Rage Against the Machine’s Zach De La Rocha in support, gleefully identifying his “battle status” as “burning mansions from Dallas to Malibu.” He and RTJ deliver some of the most brutally true punchlines I’ve ever heard on a rap record, including De La Rocha seething that, "The only thing that close quicker than our caskets be the factories.” But Killer Mike comes through with the best-written gem of all, referencing retaliation against law enforcement: “We killin' them for freedom 'cause they tortured us for boredom.”

As squirm-inducing as that line is, here’s an important plot twist to consider—Mike’s father was a police officer in Atlanta. However, that didn’t mean he loved and respected everything that policing stood for then. “A cop is the last thing he wanted any of us to be,” Mike explained. “He wanted us to be good citizens, and he always wanted us to be respectful of the law, but he never wanted us to be involved in law enforcement in any capacity.” Here’s another, arguably more head-turning plot twist—Mike’s an NRA member and has used that association to speak out in support of Black gun ownership, a stance he’s been called on the carpet for in the past. Yet, despite those emotional contradictions, the messaging’s factual basis is undeniable. Ideally, you should be able to call a murderer a murderer, even if they wear a certain uniform, without disparaging the noble cause their organizations are supposed to serve.

The album closes with “Angel Dust,” a wide-ranging commentary piece on political and religious misuse of power. The duo reject the genteel-seeming rhetoric often used by congressional representatives and leaders of worship, positioning their side (the “wrong” one) as more righteous than those hiding behind their “family values” morays:

You say you wanna be my leader, I think you wanna be my God You say you on the side of the righteous (Right) I say I'm gonna hang with the wrong There's truth where the filth is, there's lies in the law You want a whore with a white dress, I want a wife in a thong

The racial component of El-P and Killer Mike’s symbiosis enhances their working-class salvos. Mike, in particular, hasn’t been shy about tearing down popular myths about hip-hop and what’s often seen as “low-brow” Black culture, including how the movement is actually a job creation machine, not necessarily a harbinger of violence (also, I do love a clip where Bill Maher gets put in his place so quickly he gets all stammer-y). “I don’t do the ‘I don’t see color’ thing because we do,” Killer Mike told the BBC in 2017. “And I think that’s what makes us dope, and I think that’s what makes us better.” Later, he clarifies that the duo’s goal is to speak socially—as in, on behalf of the disenfranchised—not politically. “I’m not married to any political ideology or philosophy as much as I’m married to the proletariat, to the people just like us, and I'm making sure that, socially, we’re just treated fairly.”

Is that really so much to ask? To anyone who’s had their feathers ruffled by Run the Jewels 2, that question’s for you.

👉 Don’t forget to click the album image to stream the album on your favorite platform 👈