4-bar intro, 12 bars El-P, 12 bars Killer Mike, 4 bars El, 4 bars Mike, 4 bars El, coda. If you’re tryna hear the two dudes behind some of the best hip-hop albums of 2012 — and, you know, all those classics a decade or two back — trade breathless verses for a few minutes with no chorus in sight (other than a few bars of spammed vocal sample), here’s the “Get It” SoundCloud stream. After the track ends, something else from Fool’s Gold’s stream queues up immediately, but you know you’re just gonna hit the play button on “Get It” and dive back in again.
The duo named themselves Run The Jewels after LL Cool J’s beat-stopping command in “Cheesy Rat Blues,” aligning their output with hip-hop a few golden ages ago. “I’m stuck in a time capsule when rap was actually factual,” Killer Mike spits, and you believe him: these two might be higher above ground right now than ever before, but the vibe is still Independent As Fuck. Hear them toss off tongue-twisting internal rhymes and thread their birth names into the proceedings, as El-P’s synths spew a chromatic progression over a tight grid of echoing kicks. The stripped-down beat reminds us Mr. Producto doesn’t only deal in the blaring-siren apocalyptic death march — the man knows that a simple, utilitarian boom-bap can cut right through to the vital nerve.
Fool’s Gold promises us a “free album and limited edition items” from Run The Jewels in June, along with a tour in July. The summer can’t get here quick enough.
• El-P: https://www.facebook.com/THEREALELP
• Killer Mike: https://twitter.com/KillerMikeGTO
• Fool’s Gold: http://www.foolsgoldrecs.com/
More about: Run the Jewels
