album review: 'rtj4' by run the jewels

This review is harder to write than it might seem at first glimpse. It’s not my first time talking about this duo of insanely talented rappers, with El-P’s production and their eye for guest stars and how well their content walks the narrow line between over-the-top superhero fantasy, warped Adult Swim-esque imagery, and a very real grounding point in real life events. But that in and of itself can make things a bit tricky: suddenly I’m not just talking about a great duo, but one who has put out three of the best albums of the decade to which must face comparison.

And then there was the murder of George Floyd two weeks ago, kicking off some of the biggest protests against police brutality the world has ever seen - two weeks that on some level have felt like two years where not only does the real world context and content providing shocking immediacy, but also has thrown Run The Jewels into the cultural conversation in a way they’ve never quite hit before. There’s a chance they’ll have songs that hit the Hot 100 next week, and off of two days of sales they’ve made the Billboard 200 - more than that, they also have Killer Mike’s speech in Atlanta early in the protests, and suddenly Run The Jewels has become a part of a revolutionary soundtrack and moment that they could not have possibly intended. And for many people that’s been exactly what they’ve needed - Run The Jewels’ fiery polemics going back to Run The Jewels 2 in 2014 have often felt like a blast of white hot catharsis, even moreso by RTJ3 after the election of the POS-in-chief in 2016. But that’s a different sort of weight than comes with this in 2020, where if you haven’t seen police brutality firsthand you’re now seeing hundreds of times over on social media, and suddenly there’s a real chance not only is this bigger than the album, but the revolution might be going further than anyone attached to this considered - I heard Killer Mike’s speech in Atlanta, where you could tell the revolution told in bloody detail in his art was potentially erupting and as someone who has family ties to police, I can’t imagine how shaken he might have felt. And I’ll be the first to say that’s not even close to fair especially with the extremely high expectations I already had, and one reason I actually considered delaying this review for a few weeks until the intensity slows - hell, beyond just my own mental health, sometimes the all-consuming moment warps how you perceive art, especially protest and political music; hell, nearly every single review I’ve seen cites how much this album fits right now!

So I’ll admit that’s a lot to carry going into a Run The Jewels project that looked to be doing very different things, with features from 2 Chainz, Pharrell, Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, and Mavis Staples alongside returns from Zack de la Rocha and Gangsta Boo. So, how does RTJ4 hold up?

So I’ll be very honest: I’ve been more conflicted about this album than I think I have any other Run The Jewels project - not that it’s bad, far from it, it’s goddamn great, but whether it holds up to all those expectations I described. And… well, let’s get this out of the way, I don’t think this album is not better than Run The Jewels 2 or 3 - it’s shorter, it does not seem to have the insane momentum and firepower of the former nor the expansive breadth of storytelling of the latter, and while it seems like everything is set up to go off - and more often than not, it absolutely does - I’m just not sure it clicks in the same way. So I’m actually going to do something a bit different with this review, because by this point we’ve got four Run The Jewels albums and we know the formula and approach the duo takes, so instead I’m going to try and analyze where it’s not working and maybe through the end of my reasoning come out with some sort of conclusion.

And let’s start with the first and most frequent criticism I’ve seen: that the faux-TV show structure kind of undercuts the raw firepower and seriousness on display by highlighting a degree of artificiality - and like when Vince Staples did it for FM! in 2018, I completely disagree. Yeah, Run The Jewels has always been over-the-top and that can make their social commentary seem odd in juxtaposition, but if anything I’d argue the ‘entertainment’ framing is twofold commentary, half in highlighting how white culture will commodify black art, but also half in making the marriage of explosive politics and wordplay make sense in the same sphere. I’d also argue it makes sense given the increasingly bleak arc of the album, which starts from a position of gleeful crime before it makes the hard political pivot and ends with introspection spat in the face of executioners, literally called ‘a few words for the firing squad (radiation)’. But we might as well focus on the politics while we’re here and certain points on ‘goonies vs. E.T.’, namely how Killer Mike goes off on the ‘woke’ for online activism and not seeing the ‘whole truth beyond the media’ - not an uncommon line of criticism from Killer Mike, but given how his words were framed and used at the Atlanta protests it creates the context of calling out the kids for not rebelling… and when they do saying ‘oh wait, not like that!’ And putting aside how millennial online activism has aided anti-capitalist organization and that has translated to real-world direct action, this is why I made such a point about real-world context that warps how you might see an album like this right now, where the lines about chokeholds from cops gain frightening poignancy in how systematic police brutality has not changed, but also when it feels like history has its eyes on the streets right goddamn now!

But that’s not to ignore how forward-thinking this album can be, where it looks at opulent flexes and not only questions their worth in hip-hop, but the whole damn capitalist system around it, which they can see cracking at the seams - the prison-industrial complex that penalizes being poor and the slams on Objectivism, the ‘prosperity gospel’ horseshit propagating through religion that ignores how Jesus was killed by the state for being a political agitator, how empathy is transmuted into apathy which is absolutely aided by the internet, and how even if you succeed in an unjust system… well, they don’t say there’s ‘no ethical consumption under capitalism’, just have Zack de la Rocha howl to look at the slavemasters posin’ on your dollar. All of which might seem weird on a project with 2 Chainz, but look at how his verse is framed on ‘out of sight’, where he’s preemptively bailing his friend out of jail, where it’s less about the flex and more about how he’s using it to help - which in the past two weeks of bail funds feels all the more real! And yet what I truly love about this album is what I’ve loved about the last two Run The Jewels albums, in that it can get serious and genuinely vulnerable, questioning the weight of holding up their legacy, questioning whether the hustle has been worth it in a world that only seems to be getting worse, and both men realizing they have more to lose, both married and with Killer Mike grappling with the loss of his mother, he can’t escape. And this is where i’ll admit the more ‘cosmic’ touches around Run The Jewels, coaxed through a haze of Adult Swim and heavy drugs, took a while to gel for me, mostly in terms of contemplating time, not only in how things have not really changed for centuries or have only gotten worse with demons that have not been eradicated - and they can’t go back - but they have to keep trudging forward on a downward slope and pretty much take out whatever they can in their path - which might be another reason why they bookended the album as a TV show, if only to mildly undercut how bleak this can get. And I’ll admit that arc does push me away a bit in comparison with the last two albums: Run The Jewels 2 was enraged and could get incredibly dark, but could see the way through the flames, and Run The Jewels 3 felt damn aspirational in its revolt! Whereas here… they might wind up on the wrong end of ‘justice’ but intend for the words to live on - hell, more than they might have even realized.

But even that can’t be the only thing that has pushed a bit away, especially as the writing and punchlines and insanely sharp hooks remain as potent as ever and Killer Mike and El-P have even gotten back to trading bars opposite each other… so is it the production? Well, that’s the question: I remember reading a quote that said that eventually Run The Jewels would strip things down to the point where it was just bare, crushing percussion for Killer Mike and El-P to spit across, and this might be the closest they got to it… and I think it just comes down to a few tonal choices that don’t quite connect, similar to questions I had with Run The Jewels 3. I don’t think it’s helped by some questionable pacing at the very beginning, in comparison - ‘yankee and the brave (ep. 4)’ might have all that klaxon-driven percussive crunch that could kick off more, but it feels kind of abbreviated even with the nice dash of humor in the interplay on the final verses and then we go into ‘ooh la la’ with Greg Nice and DJ Premier, and while I like the laid back triumphant feel of the song, it doesn’t sustain momentum this early in the track list, and I’d argue the buzzy chop of echoing vocal samples, keys, and scratches on ‘out of sight’ doesn’t help that, even if I really like all the verses here! It’s just not a tone I really like, and I’d argue the album only really rips into gear by ‘holy calamafuck’ with its enormous trap-inflected beat switch that’s ominous as hell, and from there… hell, even when it goes into more twisted, borderline psychedelic territory like on ‘never look back’, the production can feel alien but still pretty damn killer, especially the final two songs with their haunted, ominous immensity courtesy of the touches of saxophone and especially Mavis Staples, preceded by the bassy shudders and buzzy waves of synth on ‘goonies vs. E.T.’, the guttural guitars ripping into the klaxon trap scratch of ‘walking in the snow’, Pharrell’s bassy skitter driving ‘JU$T’, and the Gang of Four rap rock flip on ‘the ground below’. And all of that is awesome… but it’s definitely not as immediate in comparison with the opening runs on previous Run The Jewels albums, and if you’re not willing to give it the time… well, I do get why some folks are saying this album isn’t grabbing them in the same way.

And yet I’m here to say you’ll want to give this time and space to breathe with you anyway, because Run The Jewels are 4/4 with this with likely one of the best rap albums of 2020… but that being said, I wonder how well this will age in the popular consciousness. I know that the more listens I gave it to digest the lyrics and mesh with the experimentation that more it connected and I think outside of this moment it might have staying power… but even with that, I do think the last two Run The Jewels albums are a bit stronger, which is why this is a light 9/10 and absolutely a recommendation… provided you hear the other two first. But in the mean time, if there’s a group that packs a wallop with every release and as of yet, hasn’t missed, it’s Killer Mike and El-P; I can only hope these legendary bandits keep running for a long damn time to see the sunrise.