run the jewels
Hear Travis Barker and Run the Jewels’ Explosive Collab ‘Forever’
Having already worked together on RTJ2, Run the Jewels and Travis Barker are definitely not strangers at this point. So it should come as no surprise that they rejoined forces on another new tune in the form of “Forever.” Opening with Barker on the drums, which you can see in the mini clip below, Killer Mike and El-P are ready to go into a lyrical battle with strong verses that easily ride the beat. “Rap’s Rasputin, I’m pulling pumps on pompous ass preachers and shooting/ I’m sitting on the last pew, pew-pewing/ One day, the poor will eat the affluent/ Hope you atone for you past doings,” Killer Mike delivers. Meanwhile, El-P responds with, Boulder Dash, you not getting it past rap’s Putin, who ride a horse, bareback, shooting/ A champ in the land of the stupid/ The kind that take the...
The 101 Best Albums of the 2010s
Why now? Because — and there’s no reason to ignore the elephant in the room: SPIN stewardship has changed hands many, many times since we made the online jump — we got our chance. Because plenty of our favorite albums of the last 10 years could still use a boost. Because some of the already unanimously beloved music on this list still merits further praise. Because we relish excuses to sound off on the music that’s affected us the most and to enlist some of our favorite writers to do so. Because the works of art below serve as a reminder that the 2010s weren’t all bad. Because lord knows we need the distraction. Because it’s fun. There’s a lot of music that isn’t on this list. Which, duh, but plenty of artists whose work defined the decade for many, many people, including many of us, ...
My Chemical Romance, Smashing Pumpkins, Run the Jewels, Pixies Highlight Riot Fest 2021 Lineup
My Chemical Romance, Smashing Pumpkins, Run the Jewels and Pixies are among the highlights of the first wave lineup for Riot Fest 2021. Yes, you read correctly. In addition to announcing the first part of its lineup for 2021, Riot Fest shared the sad news that the 2020 edition has been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Also appearing are Lupe Fiasco (who is performing The Cool in full for the first time), Coheed and Cambria, Taking Back Sunday, New Found Glory and the Circle Jerks, back for the first time at the fest since 2010. Vic Mensa, Living Colour, Big Freedia, Toots and the Maytals, Best Coast, L7, Meg Myers, Beach Bunny also are part of the first wave announcement. The actual festival will take place on Sept. 17-19, 2021. Weekend passes are on sale now, starting ...
Lady Gaga’s ‘Chromatica’ Enters Week Two Atop Australia’s Chart
Lady Gaga’s Chromatica (Interscope/Universal) hangs on for a second week at No. 1 in Australia, as DaBaby’s “Rockstar” (Interscope/Universal) completes a month at the top. Chromatica, which also snares the U.K. chart lead for a second week (by a narrow margin), is Gaga’s fourth No. 1 Down Under. The highest new debut this week belongs to Melbourne alternative rock act Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, whose sophomore album Sideways To New Italy arrives (Ivy League/Universal) at No. 5 on the ARIA Albums Chart and is the best-selling vinyl album of the week. It’s the followup to their debut Hope Downs, which peaked at No. 24 in June 2018. Sideways To New Italy impacts the Official U.K. Albums Chart this week, at No. 45. Also bowing in the Australian top 5 is The Ghost Inside’s self-title...
Killer Mike Is ‘Mad as Hell’ and ‘Saddened Beyond Consolation’ Over Rayshard Brooks’ Killing
Killer Mike has been quite vocal following the death of George Floyd at the hand of Minneapolis police officers last month, and on Saturday the rapper spoke out after another black man was killed by cops — this time in his hometown of Atlanta. On Friday, Rayshard Brooks was shot in the back and killed after a Wendy’s employee called police to report a man sleeping in their drive-thru. “#RayshardBrooks should be alive this morning. He should be waking up (hungover or drunk in the tank depending on whether he was apprehended) and not dead,” the Run The Jewels emcee wrote on Instagram, before putting himself in the shoes of those who witnessed the 27-year-old’s murder. “If I’m the Wendy’s worker who called the police, I feel like shit this morning because a call for a man slee...
Bill Maher Tells Killer Mike to Run for Office on Real Time
It’s been a busy week for Killer Mike. Last Friday, he delivered a moving speech directed at protestors in Atlanta and popped up to chime in on social issues, including New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees’ anti-kneeling stance. Oh yeah, he and El-P finally released RTJ4 this week. Killer Mike appeared on Real Time With Bill Maher where they discussed a number of issues with what’s going on in the country. He got into the changes that are going on in the country right now. “What we do know about this republic is the bullet box and the ballot box have both changed this country in a lot of ways,” Killer Mike said. “I think that the ballot box is the most easily accessible way on a local level especially, to start to change the fabric of this country.” Coming out of t...
Run the Jewels’ RTJ4 Is Driving Music for a Cop Car on Fire
Run the Jewels don’t make a reviewer’s job easy because everything that’s great about them is the stuff we’re supposed to ignore to get to the bottom of the hype. They began as the best kind of “supergroup”: An unlikely pairing of beloved talents who still had plenty of room to peak higher. El-P’s fantastic Fantastic Damage and his countless innovative productions for his own previous, self-built Def Jux universe (Cannibal Ox’s The Cold Vein, Mr. Lif’s I Phantom) were unmistakably the most futuristic squelches in dusty-crate-obsessed indie-rap. Jaime Meline set the stage for dystopian soundscapes in hip-hop more than a decade before Death Grips, Yeezus, or the “mutant” scene that’s spawned Black Dresses and Deli Girls. Then you’ve got Michael Render, d/b/a Killer Mike, a firebrand of an MC...
Killer Mike on How White People Can Help: ‘It Is Being a Part of Fixing It Always’
Last Friday, Killer Mike delivered a powerful, poignant speech directed at protestors in Atlanta. And on Monday night, he went on the Late Show With Stephen Colbert to expound on those points. In the segment, he discussed the speech from Friday, where he and T.I. spoke at Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ press conference after spending a day promoting their food truck in the city before the protests. “He spoke and then beckoned me to speak,” Mike said. “All I said was purely in my heart.” He went on to mention grassroots groups like New Georgia Project, Movement for Black Lives, the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. The Run the Jewels rapper outlined what he called “Homework for all of White America.” “If there’s a riot going on in the streets, you gotta start to und...
Run the Jewels Share Powerful ‘A Few Words For The Firing Squad (Radiation)’
Following Killer Mike’s impassioned speech and offering up their upcoming album, RTJ4, for free to anyone who needs it, El-P shared Run The Jewel’s album closer, “A Few Words for the Firing Squad (Radiation).” The beats roll in and grow as the hip-hop duo get on the mic. “When they got you you feeling like a fox running from another pack a dogs/ Put the pistol and the fist up in the air, we are there, swear to God,” El-P delivers. Meanwhile, Killer Mike’s bars build with intensity as a saxophone comes in. “This is for the do-gooders that the no-gooders, used and then abused/ For the truth-tellers tied to the whipping post, left beaten, battered, bruised/ For the ones whose body hung from a tree like a piece of strange fruit/ Go hard, last words to the firing squad was, “Fuck you too,’...
Killer Mike Urges ‘Black People and People of Color’ to Embrace Second Amendment in New Op-Ed
Killer Mike has long been a proponent of the second amendment, especially with regard to minority gun ownership. He took things a step further in an op-ed he wrote for Colorlines. The Run the Jewels rapper encouraged African-Americans and people of color to “to take seriously their Second Amendment rights” after the murder of Georgia jogger Ahmaud Arbery. “I put this statement out because the police cannot always get to you on time, and the world is not a just place. I also released these remarks because we cannot assume that everyone who wears a police uniform is just and fair,” he wrote. He continued by saying that minorities could only rely on themselves for protection and not law enforcement. “My message to Black people across the country is the same today as it was a year ago: th...
The 50 Best Songs of 2020 (So Far)
Great songs have a freedom that albums don’t because great songs only have to pull off their trick once. It’s like how a great SNL sketch can be a terrible movie or why Vine was an underrated miracle of online comedy. Sometimes an artist can get a lot more done in miniature. When people say that no one listens to albums anymore, they’re obviously mistaken, but they mean that no one listens to certain kinds of albums anymore. They won’t wait to get to the good part, and an industry that’s been padding out their wares for decades has had to adapt to a new reality where the customer is always dope. From Hailey Whitters to Hayley Williams, from King Von to Christine and the Queens, here’s a supercut of just the good parts: The songs that have challenged and delighted and comforted us through a...
Run the Jewels Announce RTJ4 Release Date, Tracklisting
Run the Jewels have revealed the release date for RTJ4. It will be released on June 5 via Jewel Runners/BMG. The album consists of 11 songs over 40 minutes. A number of heavy-hitters will feature on the album, including Pharrell Williams, Josh Homme Mavis Staples, 2 Chainz, Zack de la Rocha and more. RTJ4 was primarily recorded at Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La Studios in Malibu, California and Electric Lady Studios in New York City and took two years to complete. Previously, the duo released “Ooh La La” that featured DJ Premier and Greg Nice and “The Yankee and the Brave.” Those songs are the album’s first two tracks. In addition to RTJ4, Killer Mike and El-P are launching a cannabis line in collaboration with the founder of the legendary Cookies strain. Preorder the album he...
