Run The Jewels
Run The Jewels
2013
Run The Jewels is a hip-hop collaboration between Killer Mike and El-P after a friendship and business relationship blossomed after El-P produced Mike’s phenomenal 2012 akum R.A.P. Music.
The term Running the Jewels stems from LL Cool J’s “Cheesy Rat Blues:
“Just throw your hands in the air
And wave ‘em like you just don’t care
Keep ’em there
Yo, run the jewels, run the jewels, run the jewels”
Killer Mike and El-P inhabit more aggressive, braggadocious versions of themselves, Running the Jewels by stealing from the rich, stunting on fools, and shit talking all the rappers beneath them.
Mike and Jamie both go H.A.M. over El-P-produced bangers, with stories of robbery, cannibalism, shots towards a few of rap’s greats and crawling out of the water and into sanity. For Mike and El, the song Sea Legs works as a metaphor for being rebelliously out of touch with an oppressive reality.
El-P talks about the pitfalls of the urban jungle and a corrupt self-serving elite but rises above it by realizing that true wealth and power are in self-awareness and positive energy.
Killer Mike talks about staying true to himself and never going soft or superficial with his music or his life—always keeping it real despite the twisted forces that pervade the government (AmeriKKKa) and the music industry, with a shout out at the end to other artists doing the same.
Stand-Out Tracks
Run The Jewels
Banana Clipper
DDFH
No Come Down
A Christmas Fucking Miracle
