Run the Jewels

,

Run the Jewels two

Featured Invitee(southward):
Zack De La Rocha, Boots, Travis Barker, Gangsta Boo, Diane Java, Autocrat & Wiki

My brain melted as I was sucked aboard the mothership. I was only four tracks in, and the aliens had already won. I just remember bits and pieces of what happened after that. I was on a table getting tested like homie in Burn in the Sky with blurry images of homo-similar creatures with blue skin. Once the music stopped, I woke upwardly back dwelling house in my bed. Was I dreaming? I had no clue, only I somehow felt like a new person. Them aliens are crafty, shifty motherfuckers.

Run the Jewels ii sounds like if George Orwell's 1984 had a soundtrack. It sounds equally if it were crafted in an alien zoo on Tralfamadore. From Company Flow to the formation of Def Jux to his contempo dealings with Killer Mike, El-P has always been alee of the curb in terms of independence. He e'er embraced the underground. In fact, he's reveled in it. Like Bane in the darkness. Like the Ninja Turtles in the sewers of NYC. So it'due south non a surprise that he has taken to the Internet as well as he has these last couple years. The 'net was made for artists like him.

Long acclaimed amongst underground dwellers like graffiti writers, skaters, and those "in the know," El-P is finally getting the mainstream respect he deserves. He's only not a name your favorite producers or rap nerds speak of when talking nigh the all-time hip-hop producers in history.

Fifty-fifty more than impressive is how Killer Mike—a disciple of the Dungeon Family—has been able to conform in this climate. He get-go appeared in 2000 on OutKast'due south Stankonia in an era when everyone was going platinum. 14 years later on, he'southward withal hitting us on the head with smart, quality bully raps, and has become ane of hip-hop's true treasures. Just peep the way he represented usa on CNN in the wake of the Michael Brown state of affairs.

Simply back to this muthafuckin' spaceship.

Producto's signature chaotic product from the future combined with Killer Mike's brash delivery will pretty much smack the fuccboi out of you. Practiced luck getting past the opening track, "Jeopardy." If you don't dice from your brain melting and being abducted like I did, your end will come from a broken confront, neck, etc. Or, if you are a fuccboi you will cry because Killer Mike tells yous to fuck off. He says it politely, but nonetheless. The album starts, continues, and ends like an barrage capable of flattening large metro areas. Gangsta Boo (who simply released a pretty proficient mixtape) and Zack De La Rocha are on this album! And they leaked information technology days before its release date! For gratis! What more do you want? A reach-around and a cigarette?

The album starts, continues, and ends similar an avalanche capable of flattening large metro areas.

RTJ pumps the brakes a chip when the album gets to the joint with the aforementioned Gangsta Boo. "Love Once again" has the advisable parenthetical in its title "(Akinyele Dorsum)," and information technology is a marvel. The beat is chopped and screwed compared to the rest of the album. Information technology's the equivalent to driving through a thunderstorm to only be welcomed past clear skies and birds chirping.

Boo, Mike, and El tell us most their sexual escapades whilst proclaiming that their significant others want dicks and clits in their mouths all twenty-four hour period. Boo is raunchy, likes to ride faces, and "ain't a foursquare bowwow." The rap game needs more like her, and she has been missed. (Once more, download her new tape. It's fire.)

Things pick back up in a major way afterwards the Diane Coffee-assisted "Crown." The concluding rail on the complimentary download/
Spotify version, "Angel Squeegee," was made on—well— angel dust. The beat tries to bosom your eardrums if information technology didn't happen already. The bass is menacing and the synth tries to posses your body. Mike and Producto drop jewels like Killer Mike'south "Got kush for the pain, 'cause the world is dangerous" and El-P's "You desire a whore in a white clothes, I want a married woman in a thong." Existent fucking shit right there, ladies and gentlemen. Life is difficult. In that location are and then many different sounds in this rails it'southward liable to make you go mad if 1 is dusted. Killer Mike continuously saying "RTJ,"a piano, and and then suddenly nothing.

However, one of my favorite tracks is the iTunes bonus cut, "Blockbuster Night ii." Information technology features three generations of underground NYC rap: El-P, Autocrat, and Ratking frontman Wiki. Like the rest of the album, at that place's zilch just bars on here. Quality posse cuts are rare these days, and this one is constructive.

Run the Jewels two is better than Run the Jewels 1 and is on par withR.A.P. Music, which is a tough task. The duo has more than a few studio sessions nether their belt now making this project a more polished, complete one. The beats hit a little harder, they finish each other'southward sentences like a coked-up version of Styles and Jada, the marketing campaign has been handled beautifully, the merch is dope (buy some shit!), and Meow the Jewels is happening with the interest of legendary producers for a proficient cause.

The second installment of the Run the Jewels canon is an aggressive, masterful piece of fine art. When the aliens finally come for our souls, humanity should present this to them as an act of war. Killer Mike is Wesley Snipes in Demolition Human, and El-P is Rutger Hauer in Bract Runner—an unlikely tandem with a common crusade—creating havoc from beginning to cease.

Angel Diaz is a staff writer for Circuitous Media, and he was a jewel runner in a past life. Follow him @ADiaz456.