The Singles Jukebox

Big year for Los Guerreros’ indie cred so far…

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[6.71]

Alfred Soto: Four months later, El-P’s opening round sounds sturdy instead of inspired: predictable surrealism. Mike on the other hand rhymes to match the swirling, whizzing backdrop. “I love Dr. King but violence might be necessary,” he raps, not without regret. 
[7]

Anthony Easton: How to do speed without seeing paranoia, how to do speed without any sameness; how to play vocal effects for something other than cheap novelty; answers to important questions about hip hop aesthetics; even the dope reference is placed in stark relief with politics that are not facile and preachy. The rococo elegance here is masterful.
[8]

Micha Cavaseno: The failings of Run The Jewels are one too many; in an interesting bit of gruesome irony, El-P’s production has become garish and ugly with his advancements in technology, so what once sounded like Beat Street remade by Shinya Tsukamoto now sounds like Travis Scott scoring a hentai (thankfully his rapping remains perfectly unchanged, though nowhere as bitter as the younger El). However, it’s watching Killer Mike sell his specific vintage of southern firebrand to El’s audience that kills me. If 2014 showed us something, it’s that Atlanta could have used a man like Killer Mike more than ever. More often than not, I see the narrative that RTJ and R.A.P Music have helped in finding Mike the fanbase he deserves. But right now his talent is squandered as he continues to preach to the concerned, and not those who bear witness.
[4]

David Sheffieck: El-P is no shrinking violet, but here he’s setting up so Killer Mike can knock them down. “Lie, Cheat, Steal” only falls into focus when it shifts from the former’s boasts to the latter’s indictments; when it does, it becomes one of the hardest hitting songs we’re likely to hear this year. The end of 2014 suggested that protest music might be getting a new wind — Run the Jewels seem poised to become leaders of the movement.
[9]

Ian Mathers: Most of the tracks on Run the Jewels 2 somehow manage to feel like they’re both revelling in the pure, sometimes immature use of language-as-weapon and extremely relevant demolitions of what the fuck was up in 2014. Which is what makes these two one of the only supergroups worth any sort of a damn. But “Lie, Cheat, Steal” (“kill, win, WIN”) almost splits those approaches in half, and as much fun as El-P’s work here is, Killer Mike’s verse is breathtaking in intensity, scope, density, dexterity, and pretty much anything else you could wish for. 
[9]

Crystal Leww: The Run the Jewels live show is one of the best parts of festival season. Watching El-P and Killer Mike play off each other and trade barbs is a phenomenally fun, what I imagine the days of seeing huge rap posses probably felt like. But Run the Jewels recorded exposes their flaws in very obvious ways. Killer Mike is a much better rapper than El-P, much tighter and much clearer-recorded. More importantly, this stuff just doesn’t pass the car test, the most vital test for all my favorite rap songs. I appreciate what they’re doing, but I don’t want to listen to this while driving.
[5]

Brad Shoup: For letting regular dudes shed their fuckboy status for forty minutes, we should probably throw this a couple points. El-P’s got the right idea: have a little fun, don’t pretend like your grumpiness is anything other than branding. Mike personifies structural racism as some sort of NBA Bilderberg Group; he tells a great campfire story though. You can nod to this, but I can’t imagine banging… the garbled chipmunk melody and on-the-fritz wah make this something like a best-case Immortal Technique track.
[5]