Stream: Run the Jewels, ‘RTJ4’

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Run the Jewels (Photo by Timothy Saccenti)

Run the Jewels’ new album “RTJ4” was released Wednesday as a free download, two days early but right on time.

“Fuck it, why wait,” the duo of El-P and Killer Mike said. “The world is infested with bullshit so here’s something raw to listen to while while you deal with it all. We hope it brings you some joy. Stay safe and hopeful out there and thank you for giving two friends the chance to be heard and do what they love.”

Though two years in the making, the duo’s first album since December 2016 feels ripped from today’s headlines. Already rightfully regarded as rap’s foremost truth-tellers, “RTJ4” cuts a wide swathe through contemporary politics and culture, with the production, largely helmed by El-P, making it all sound like a dystopian sci-fi nightmare. That it arrives in the middle of one — a pandemic exacerbated by a historic economic downturn exacerbated by a poison political climate exacerbated by the protest movement triggered by the death of George Floyd — only adds to its currency. It’s the soundtrack of now, and a wake-up call for the few who still need one.

The first two singles “Yankee and the Brave (Ep.4)” and “Ooh la la (feat. DJ Premier & Greg Nice),” released in March, hinted that “RTJ4” was going to be something special. Besides Premier and Nice, the album features Pharrell Williams, Mavis Staples, 2 Chainz, Zack de la Rocha and Josh Homme. As if the album needed any more historic heft, Staples, 80, sings the chorus on “Pulling the Pin,” including “There’s a grenade in my heart / And the pin is in their palm.”

The knockout punch, though, is “Walking in the Snow,” a song that was made last fall, in which Killer Mike references the 2014 death of Eric Garner after an incident with New York police:

They promise education but really they
give you tests and scores
And they predicting prison population
by who scoring the lowest
And usually the lowest scores the
poorest and they look like me
And everyday on the evening news they feed you fear for free
And you so numb you watch the cops choke out a man like me
Until my voice goes from a shriek to whisper “I can’t breathe”
And you sit there in house on couch and watch it on TV
The most you give’s a Twitter rant and call it a tragedy
But truly the travesty
You’ve been robbed of your empathy
Replaced it with apathy

The world is exploding. “RJT4” tells us when and how the fuses were lit, and what the powder burns feel like.

The album and lyrics sheet are available for download here, with the option of donating to the National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Fund. Run the Jewels’ tour with Rage Against the Machine has been rescheduled for 2021; both are scheduled to appear at Coachella, whenever that happens.

||| Watch: The video for “Ooh La La”

||| Stream: The album in full.