Album Of The Week: Run The Jewels – RTJ4


RTJ4 1




Our editor’s pick of the albums reviewed on these pages during the past seven days is RTJ4, the incredible new record from Run The Jewels – revisit the review and check out the album via Spotify:

“Run The Jewels released their fourth album early, and let everyone download it for free. This might seem like a promotional junket from the mid-noughties, but as with most of their actions, Killer Mike and El-P had their reasons, not least of which was timing.”

“The Saturday before, Mike had spoken publicly in the wake of George Floyd’s death, a video address which emotionally articulated the trauma being visited on America’s black communities and the stance that those most affected by it could take. As the country roiled under the spectre of widespread unrest, RTJ4 dropped like an atomic truth bomb.”

“Much has been said of the odd chemistry between the duo, a sentiment jokingly handled at one point with the aside, ‘One’s black, one’s white so if you don’t like them, you automatically racist’, but the contrast in style gives their fourth installment more wings than ever. Neither has any time for messing around, the twelve tracks running breathlessly, a tsunami of rhymes, whilst the big name collaborators – Josh Homme, Zack La Rocha and the inevitable Pharrell – are kept well in the background. There is a message here and let no other egos get in the way.”

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