This album is getting on to being nearly a year old, but I thought it'd be fun to review the album because it was such a phenomenally well constructed album. Run The Jewels is made up of legendary underground rappers, El-P and Killer Mike. What makes them so great is El-P's incredibly well made beats as showcased more effectively on RTJ2 and Killer Mike's incredible lyrical ability and unique quick fire flow. Leading up to this album I was incredibly hyped for its release with the brilliant singles that were released for it, Legend Has It, 2100 & Talk To Me. 2100 was a slower, politically charged anthem that really switched up the flow of the album, leading to a darker atmosphere. Where Run The Jewels really show their power is on their hype anthems and Talk To Me is really one of their best.
What astounds me about Run The Jewels is the way that both El-P and Killer Mike were prestiged artists in their own right, but together they create incredible, overpowering, perfect hip hop. Out of the two of them Killer Mike is undeniably the better rapper in his own right, but what makes El-P so special is his humour and his wit. Such as in the song Hey Kids (Bumaye) where he refers to the powers-that-be as half man imps and even better, in Legend Has It he spits "I got a unicorn horn for a..." and where he's evidently going to say "C*ck" as shown in an unreleased snippet of the song, instead a female interjects with "Stop" completely ending his flow and his verse. What's funnier is that the woman is actually El-P's long-time girlfriend. But Killer Mike isn't short of his own humour, such as referring to the devil as having "a bad toupee and a spray tan" CC: Donald Trump.
The features on the album don't get any better than Danny Brown appearing on Hey Kids (Bumaye), utilising that incredibly unique flow and voice that he does so well. I also was really surprised to hear Zach De La Rocha grace another Run The Jewels track on the epic finale Kill Your Masters. I don't know why his voice blends into RTJ's tracks so incredibly well but it really does. But what you'll notice most about this album is the progression from their critically acclaimed second album, but also the political undertones that run throughout the whole album, like on the songs A Report To The Shareholders and 2100. Any fan of rap will have a stellar time just listening to this album, again and again and again.
9.5/10