Run the Jewels

These guys can absolutely do no wrong.

Both have reinvented rap careers. Not that they ever quit or fell off. But being open to the transformations in their own art and identity has been fascinating. Sometimes even more than the music they're making.

I was at their show at the Echoplex last year and was struck by the amount of Coachella types. You know what I mean. There was some EDM guy opening and me and a large black man were sitting on the back bench sourly nursing our beers like we came for some mother fucking gangster shit tho.

Oh, they gave it to us. Once laptop trance boy finished, we were both right there, necks wrecked, right along side the v-necks and flower garland headbands. Run the Jewels is as fucking bombastic and rugged as they come.

You can't marry two smarter yet grimier artists. If they got married in Vegas, they snarked through the whole cermony, they stomped Elvis out, set fire to the drive-thru chapel, hi-jacked his pink Cadillac, and ate all the shrimp cocktail at the Excalibur buffet, not because that's what they can afford but because that's what the fuck they wanted to do. El-P slayed Letterman. Killer Mike charmed his way through Bill Maher. I fucking LOVE both of these people. Even if I'm not entirely with Run the Jewels.

The commercial viability of Run the Jewels and the widespread acceptance from outside the rap community is both something to be studied and admired. Nobody since probably Dre and Snoop has managed to transcend that line for really real without any loss of credibility artistically or as men. The thing that makes Run the Jewels special is because El and Mike are exactly who they say they are.

Love,
Brando