Speaker 1: Pushkin. It's been a little over nine months since Rick
Speaker 1: Rubin last interviewed Killer Mike and LP for the show.
Speaker 1: Last time they spoke, Run the Jewels were finishing up
Speaker 1: their fourth album at Rick Studio, Shangha Law, and since then,
Speaker 1: the world's been upside down, dealing with the pandemic, social unrest,
Speaker 1: and a racial reckoning Unlike anything we've seen in the
Speaker 1: last couple of decades. This album feels like a reflection
Speaker 1: of all of that. Killer Mike and LP have been
Speaker 1: raw since day one, making a career rapping about the
Speaker 1: hypocrisy and injustice that a lot of other people are
Speaker 1: just now waking up to. As Rick says, it makes
Speaker 1: the new album sound almost prophetic. But as you'll hear
Speaker 1: them say, they never set out to make protest songs
Speaker 1: or the soundtrack for twenty twenty. They just speak their truth,
Speaker 1: and sometimes that truth is ugly and dark, but can
Speaker 1: also be funny and at times downright joyous. This is
Speaker 1: easily my favorite release of the year so far. This
Speaker 1: is broken record Liner notes for the digital age. I'm
Speaker 1: justin Richmond. Rick and Run the Jewels had a lot
Speaker 1: to talk about. We wanted this one to breathe a
Speaker 1: little bit to give Killer, Mike and Elfie time to
Speaker 1: really dig into the making of the new album and
Speaker 1: the state of the world. Here's Rick Rubin with Run
Speaker 1: the Jewels. Let's talk about the album. Hell yeah, before
Speaker 1: you started, was there any overarching principle in mind going
Speaker 1: into the fourth album? Yeah, it had to be jamming
Speaker 1: and uh and it had to be a retired to aggression. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no doubt. I think we just knew that we wanted
Speaker 1: this record too. We wanted it to be a shotgun
Speaker 1: blast man. We wanted it to be fire and like
Speaker 1: you said, the other one was like water, it was blue,
Speaker 1: it was you know, it was tapping in some sadness
Speaker 1: that we both like naturally kind of tapped into. And
Speaker 1: I don't think we felt that way this time. I
Speaker 1: think we felt like ready to kind of like brand
Speaker 1: new again. I think we felt ready to rot, crush, kill, destroy,
Speaker 1: like and I think that it was sort of unspoken.
Speaker 1: Me and Mike don't really talk too much about this ship,
Speaker 1: but we but I remember I sort of one of
Speaker 1: the first sessions that we had, I started playing him
Speaker 1: some of the music that I had been making to
Speaker 1: play him because that's what I do. I go and
Speaker 1: I make a bunch of music, and I kind of
Speaker 1: picked the things that I think are you know, worthy
Speaker 1: of both of us jumping on and playing from Mike
Speaker 1: see how he responds. And one of the first things
Speaker 1: I played him was the thing that I wanted the
Speaker 1: most for him to like, which was their first song
Speaker 1: on album, Yankee and the Brave, which in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways was a return to a lot of the
Speaker 1: older sort of production techniques that I used to use
Speaker 1: coming up. I was using, you know, using samplers and
Speaker 1: breaks and and kind of filtered through, you know, a
Speaker 1: new understanding of production that had I had gotten to
Speaker 1: through the years of really understanding frequency at low end
Speaker 1: and all of the things that really matter when you're
Speaker 1: you're bumping some shit in the system. But I was
Speaker 1: just praying that Mike got it, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: like that Mike got what I wanted out of that spirit,
Speaker 1: And of course he did immediately, and he immediately kind
Speaker 1: of like grinned and was like, oh, yeah, this is
Speaker 1: this is this is the first jam, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. And we recorded that jam and who and
Speaker 1: oh La La same day too, in one day, and
Speaker 1: and I remember even playing the Ship for you actually,
Speaker 1: where I was like, yeah, we don't have much, but
Speaker 1: I think we have like the first like two songs
Speaker 1: and and and even you were like, yeah, those are
Speaker 1: the first two songs, um right, But yeah it was.
Speaker 1: It was undeniable lot of lights. And it was weird though,
Speaker 1: because that's not what normally happens. It's usually like you
Speaker 1: do a bunch of jams and then you figure out
Speaker 1: the order. And this one like really sort of wrote
Speaker 1: itself pretty quickly, like at least the first half of
Speaker 1: the record seemed to like right himself. So I think
Speaker 1: we just wanted to be lean and mean and and
Speaker 1: and you know, fucking and carrying flamethrowers. On that first track,
Speaker 1: do you remember what came first lyrically? That was Mike
Speaker 1: back at it and at it like that whole pattern.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh shit, Mike is Mike is flipping
Speaker 1: on cats. Like immediately he set the tone of that ship.
Speaker 1: And that was that to me, that just set the
Speaker 1: tone for the album. Yeah, that that line had been
Speaker 1: in my mind, like you're that back at it like
Speaker 1: a crack at it, mister Black, And that that had
Speaker 1: been in my mind like a year, like like, let's
Speaker 1: fuck it up. I'm Mike Tyson. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I'm I believe in starting hard, coming out swinging. Yeah,
Speaker 1: ell Is Ell is like Mayweather esque in that he
Speaker 1: has the ability to finish. His thoughts are finishing the beautiful,
Speaker 1: Like I don't care how well you think you did
Speaker 1: against Floyd. He gonna take, you know, twelve rounds and
Speaker 1: your weakness is gonna show because his defense is penetrable.
Speaker 1: So but me, I'm coming in, ducking, moving side to side,
Speaker 1: trying to knock your fucking head off. So I had
Speaker 1: wanted to that. I wanted that to be the first
Speaker 1: line on an album since we finished the last album.
Speaker 1: You know, after I'm done with like an album. It
Speaker 1: for me, it's like I'm already thinking that the next
Speaker 1: Like watching that Michael Jordan's shit like really helped me
Speaker 1: understand that I'm not insane. In my mind, everybody's sleeping
Speaker 1: on me. I don't give a fuck if they're not
Speaker 1: sleeping on me, they're sleeping on me. So that's what
Speaker 1: I tell myself to get myself ready. And I think
Speaker 1: that's part of the reason I'm always leaned toward aggressive rapping.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Even when I'm happy, it
Speaker 1: can sound aggressive. So for me, yeah, I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: you motherfucker's still don't get how adult Run the Jewels
Speaker 1: is and hear the fuck we go again, And I'm
Speaker 1: gonna feel like that every run of Jews record because
Speaker 1: I don't never want to get complacent, and I don't
Speaker 1: never want to get compliant to whatever the new rule
Speaker 1: the sound is. I always want to push. I was
Speaker 1: gonna say there were specific lines in that song that
Speaker 1: when we listened to them in the studio I loved them.
Speaker 1: But now when they came out in the world, it
Speaker 1: almost seems like psychic mind reading, Like it's it's really incredible,
Speaker 1: how in the moment the lyrics sound like they're being
Speaker 1: written about what's happening. But I heard them before it
Speaker 1: was happening, and at that time I would say I
Speaker 1: didn't feel any threat of it happening. If it was,
Speaker 1: it's remarkable, and that was not long ago. How the
Speaker 1: energy shifted. Mike, what do you where do you think
Speaker 1: that comes from? I think that the times are forever
Speaker 1: in always, and you know, the oligarchs of always making
Speaker 1: slaves of us were always resisting. Rome would have crushed,
Speaker 1: crumbled two hundred years prior and had it not been
Speaker 1: the circle for the circus. If there is no entertainment,
Speaker 1: if there is no distraction, if there is no what
Speaker 1: is the food weekly or what is the next fucking
Speaker 1: app If none of that happens, and you're left to
Speaker 1: see the world for what it really raw is. We're
Speaker 1: in a fucking jungle all the time now. Because I
Speaker 1: represent a group of people that happen to be on
Speaker 1: the lowest run of that ladder in the most brutal
Speaker 1: capitalistic system in the world, we always see the jungle.
Speaker 1: Even though you can distract yourself with drugs and drinking
Speaker 1: and fun, and you know, even in all distractions aren't bad.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you just focus in on you and your family.
Speaker 1: The jungle still is fucking going on, And I think
Speaker 1: that what you know, for me, it's like everybody start
Speaker 1: paying attention at the exact same time. So the lyrics
Speaker 1: that I've been wrapping for seven I met with the
Speaker 1: Black Panthers yesterday, very good meeting. A lot of these
Speaker 1: people are in their seventies and have given over fifty
Speaker 1: years of their life to the revolution and the struggle
Speaker 1: for the proletariat to overcome you know what we are overcoming.
Speaker 1: And you know, the first thing I said, besides thanking
Speaker 1: them for putting me next to cardib in our open letter,
Speaker 1: was Hey, I've been waiting for you guys to call
Speaker 1: me seventeen years, and I've actively been shouting y'all out.
Speaker 1: I have been representing for people like me two New
Speaker 1: Shapur Asida Shapur, you know, include them and out limits
Speaker 1: to people like Nni Pelter in the American Indian Movement
Speaker 1: and things of that nature. So I'm like, I'm fucking
Speaker 1: glad that you no longer look at rappers is simply
Speaker 1: the minstrual class to be used by you or the
Speaker 1: other side to repeat. But I'm glad you're engaging me
Speaker 1: as an organizer because for me, that's what this ship
Speaker 1: is about. Music and art represent the times when Nina
Speaker 1: Simons as an artist duty to represent the time. So
Speaker 1: I'm glad that the words hit people, but they're always true.
Speaker 1: Before Eric Garner, I can't breathe. It is true. Post
Speaker 1: Eric Garner, I can't breathe. It is true. And unless
Speaker 1: we do something to to resist the state and it's
Speaker 1: tearing it over us, using authoritarian using our own citizens,
Speaker 1: fellow citizens of authority figures to the most brutal extent.
Speaker 1: Then those songs will always be relevant. It's just when
Speaker 1: the people choose to pay attention, and that that's the difference.
Speaker 1: There is no going to the movies, There is no
Speaker 1: you know, distracting yourself from what's going on right now,
Speaker 1: because everybody's the fucking size. So you know, I'm glad
Speaker 1: they got it. So if the jungle is ongoing, can
Speaker 1: you be optimistic? Absolutely? Why would you be? You know? Why? Why?
Speaker 1: Why deny yourself happiness in the midst of it? You know,
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't know. All I know is for
Speaker 1: four hundred and one years, my people have been here,
Speaker 1: and it's been a hellacious four hundred and one years.
Speaker 1: And for four hundred and one years they have resisted,
Speaker 1: and for four one hundred and one years they have
Speaker 1: found joy in times of brutal sadness. My grandparents, you know,
Speaker 1: I remember asking my grandmother. You know, I'm a young
Speaker 1: pocass kid. We raised my grandparents, you know, me and
Speaker 1: my sisters we don't get air Jordan's, but you know,
Speaker 1: what matters to get the sixty dollars, nikes at Marshall,
Speaker 1: so our whole shit. We don't think we're rich. We
Speaker 1: don't understand how rich we are. Until one day we
Speaker 1: asked our grandmother, what did you get for Christmas? Now,
Speaker 1: my grandmother's from a landowning family. They have a farm,
Speaker 1: but they're still working a farm. They wear potato sack dresses,
Speaker 1: and she said, we'd be lucky to get potato sack
Speaker 1: drawls and a bag of fruit. And I'm thinking bag
Speaker 1: of fucking brute for Christmas underwear, Like what the fuck
Speaker 1: kind of Untie Linda underwear? Given ass? Shit is this?
Speaker 1: And my grandfather said she what Christmas? I had two
Speaker 1: sisters and I had to work, and I was in
Speaker 1: the third grade, and I'm thinking, you're nine in the
Speaker 1: third grade. There is no such thing as Christmas for him,
Speaker 1: and there has never been until he starts a family
Speaker 1: and his wife and his children and grandchildren. But I
Speaker 1: realized then that what was or I realized then more
Speaker 1: and more now that happiness is not Currently are always
Speaker 1: defined by the wows of the jungle coming on us.
Speaker 1: Even if you're on a hunt, you're gonna find time
Speaker 1: to laugh, even if you're being hunted and you evadue capture,
Speaker 1: You're gonna find time to last. Enjoy is the greatest
Speaker 1: anecdote for pain I have seen in the last two years,
Speaker 1: you know, three or four years, my mother died via
Speaker 1: a telephone. I've seen a young niece of my wife
Speaker 1: and I is dies cancer and never lost their joy
Speaker 1: through it all, you know what I'm saying. So in
Speaker 1: the jungle, that's really all you have. The ability to love,
Speaker 1: the ability to comfort one another, to experience joy and
Speaker 1: the euphoria of surviving together. There's there's you know, as
Speaker 1: an adrenaline junkie. You know, my man Carlos, who's an
Speaker 1: amazing comedian, a wild and out said man. Being black
Speaker 1: is dangerous and count of fun as fuck. So I
Speaker 1: think the people, for regular people, the jungle is dangerous,
Speaker 1: it is wild, but it's it's it's at times you've
Speaker 1: got a smile because you know you want a crap,
Speaker 1: but it's fun as fun. That's one of the things
Speaker 1: about Run the Jewels to me, that's so beautiful that
Speaker 1: because these records are funny and joyous, and these records
Speaker 1: aren't hopeless, You're not You're not talking to two dudes
Speaker 1: who have lost hope. You're hearing two dudes fighting for
Speaker 1: their hope. You're hearing two dudes, you know, giving their
Speaker 1: take on hope. Hope doesn't mean blindness, Hope doesn't mean unawareness.
Speaker 1: You know, those two things are not, you know, codependent.
Speaker 1: And I love the fact that we could make a
Speaker 1: record that is intense at times and speaks to, you know,
Speaker 1: the shit that's going on in a real way that
Speaker 1: is painful, but doesn't leave you feeling drained and depressed,
Speaker 1: and doesn't leave you feeling hurt. It leaves you feeling
Speaker 1: hopefully energized and excited. Um and in a typical way
Speaker 1: not you know, I think the people underestimate the value
Speaker 1: of honesty, you know, and how invigorating that could be,
Speaker 1: like like how energetic honesty can be. The record ending
Speaker 1: the way that it ended was important, you know, the
Speaker 1: record ending like we're in front of a firing squad
Speaker 1: and we are giving our summation of what makes us
Speaker 1: us and the reason why we do what we do
Speaker 1: in the form of sort of relating it back to
Speaker 1: personal stories about the women in our lives and some
Speaker 1: of the inspiration and some of the struggle that that
Speaker 1: sort of leads us to who we are, and then
Speaker 1: the last line is fuck you two and and then
Speaker 1: you get into Yankee and the Brave and Yankee and
Speaker 1: the Brave Is this stupid TV show via the nineteen
Speaker 1: early nineteen eighties like dutsa Hazard or night Rider and
Speaker 1: the Rascally you know, the rascal anti heroes somehow escape
Speaker 1: with their lives and then sped off together in a
Speaker 1: in a bureau grant National, you know, to smoke more
Speaker 1: weed and fucko and and and and and fight another day.
Speaker 1: And that, to me is always the reason why I'm
Speaker 1: grateful that my partnership but Mike exists because I think
Speaker 1: that I went I'd struggled for a long time to
Speaker 1: find that type of voice, and I needed a friend
Speaker 1: to help me, to help me have that type of
Speaker 1: voice where I wanted to my music in the way
Speaker 1: that I used to write it could. It was often
Speaker 1: very heavy. But I don't think I always nailed I
Speaker 1: don't think I always nailed the energy of hope, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. I don't think and I don't
Speaker 1: think hope has to be a statement and you don't
Speaker 1: have to say everything might be okay. So that's not
Speaker 1: that's not hope. That's that's delusion um or that's you know,
Speaker 1: wishful thinking, not necessarily delusion. Maybe it's just wishful thinking.
Speaker 1: But you don't have to say that. You just have
Speaker 1: to convey a spirit of fighting another day, I think,
Speaker 1: and that's something that might help round out for me.
Speaker 1: Like I'm I listened to some of my earlier music
Speaker 1: and while I'm proud of it, the reason why I
Speaker 1: love Being and Run the Jewels as an artist now
Speaker 1: is because it took our friendship to find this other space,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, which is like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: you know what, I can actually talk about this stuff.
Speaker 1: But there's another zone. There's another way to talk about
Speaker 1: this shit that doesn't leave, that doesn't leave you feeling
Speaker 1: beat down. It feels more of a more evolved position,
Speaker 1: is what it feels like. I think. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that our friendship has evolved us as artists.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting when you have someone who makes where
Speaker 1: you find that pocket where that where someone else and
Speaker 1: their ideas, although strictly their ideas and strictly their personality,
Speaker 1: it's nothing that you would ever think of, right, but
Speaker 1: yet somehow they really do kind of complete your you know,
Speaker 1: your personality as an artist, it allows you to play
Speaker 1: your position stronger. It allows you to be who you
Speaker 1: are strong it because you know that there's a balance,
Speaker 1: you know, and it allows you to represent certain things
Speaker 1: that in a different way that you couldn't say, you know,
Speaker 1: like I can't. I can't say the stuff that might says.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not my life, it's not my personality,
Speaker 1: it's not who. But but I can stand in it.
Speaker 1: I can stand with it, and I can show up
Speaker 1: for it, you know, and and and and be myself
Speaker 1: and and it. You know, in that regard, it's like, um,
Speaker 1: it's really refreshing for me. And that's why I keep
Speaker 1: doing it. It makes it a strong collaboration and the
Speaker 1: fact that you're both so different but together make something
Speaker 1: that's bigger than the individual. It's it's really cool, right exactly.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with Run the Jewels after quick break.
Speaker 1: We're back with Rick and Run the Jewels. We never
Speaker 1: talked about this before, but how did the band? How
Speaker 1: did the band start? I know we're mainly talking about
Speaker 1: the new album that because we just talked so recently,
Speaker 1: But last time we talk we didn't really get into
Speaker 1: how you guys started doing this together. Well, I did.
Speaker 1: I produced Mike's album Rap Music, and that was the
Speaker 1: first project we did together, and I was just magic.
Speaker 1: I think we both were just just loved that and
Speaker 1: it just felt really, really great. I definitely recognized way
Speaker 1: before Elle, this is a marriage made in heaven. And
Speaker 1: I say that in a good way, like like like
Speaker 1: the world had beat my buddy up. Man, it had
Speaker 1: been some assholes out there of my main But I'm
Speaker 1: just hopelessly optimistic and I'm a romantic and I knew
Speaker 1: the first three beats Elle ever played me that for
Speaker 1: the rest of my career, this motherfucker's gonna be producing me.
Speaker 1: And after the first time we went out on the
Speaker 1: road together, it's run the Jewels Word and my manager
Speaker 1: for the party managing Circle Joe's City right next to me.
Speaker 1: When I got off the buff, Joe was like, so,
Speaker 1: what we're gonna do now? You give back to solo
Speaker 1: album like asps a fucking lutely not I'm gonna rap
Speaker 1: group like And that was dick like for me. That
Speaker 1: was it's nothing else to say, Like I loved his
Speaker 1: dude as a human being. He smoked cigarettes, but I
Speaker 1: walked away and then I come back. I love his
Speaker 1: his want for good, even on his meanness. Honrea's day,
Speaker 1: it is about you know, he wants, he wants everything
Speaker 1: to be okay. Like Ell is not as cynical as
Speaker 1: people would have thought. The LP you know was, But
Speaker 1: the motherfucker was just genuine and dope and he made
Speaker 1: the illest makes the illest shit ever. And I'm just like,
Speaker 1: as a rap, as a kid who grew up on
Speaker 1: deaf jam, no ass kissing, how could you not want
Speaker 1: to make the illest shit ever? Every time? Like I
Speaker 1: still remember when the fuck I went and picked up
Speaker 1: the Unbad album and with my own money by myself.
Speaker 1: That's how LP beats made me feel every time I rapped.
Speaker 1: So for me, I was just like, this is it
Speaker 1: and all had definitely by it. After the first six
Speaker 1: months albums this we just knew we're going to be
Speaker 1: making records. But the group together, I think ultimately because
Speaker 1: of the Rap Music Album, which is classic, and thank
Speaker 1: thank God for Jason DeMarco putting us together. But I
Speaker 1: think Jason DeMarco, who I always get credit to, is
Speaker 1: the wizard in this movie. He's the person that saw
Speaker 1: from a beat and rap perspective, but from a personality
Speaker 1: respective perspective that we could potentially lock in. Because when
Speaker 1: I called him excited going crazy the first album, it's
Speaker 1: just rap music, he said, I was hoping you guys
Speaker 1: would like each other. And you say that because I
Speaker 1: was like, Jason, he has to produced album, and Jason
Speaker 1: was like, I'm going to figure it out. So in
Speaker 1: my mind's eye, if this is the illustrated novel, like
Speaker 1: Jason literally is mister Glass, you know, his job was
Speaker 1: to pull the superhero out of both of us and
Speaker 1: put us together and say and say, well here it is,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So it's funny though, because
Speaker 1: and that's all true, but the way they run the
Speaker 1: Jewels started was way more accidental because even though we
Speaker 1: had already been that's the origin story of us meeting.
Speaker 1: I already had plans for you, man, I had policten
Speaker 1: when you called me to do the mixtape. And I've
Speaker 1: never said this to you when you called me to
Speaker 1: do a mixtape. When when you was like, I gotta
Speaker 1: turn the mixtape I write slow, Joe was like, you're
Speaker 1: gonna go up there, you just gonna do it. An
Speaker 1: I was like I don't give a fuck. I say,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get back on his shit. It's something there.
Speaker 1: I told you. I said it's something there based off UTA.
Speaker 1: I'm just like I'm supposed to be rapping. I would
Speaker 1: have wrapped twenty albums with you for free. Said that
Speaker 1: I didn't give a fuck. I really and I remember
Speaker 1: you're saying to beyo, Mike, there's no money. He was like,
Speaker 1: I already have. I I don't give a shit. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to because I knew the more we did
Speaker 1: it together, the better the chances of us keeping doing
Speaker 1: it together was. And I was in love, Like if
Speaker 1: I compared it to my to my relationship, was saying
Speaker 1: to my wife at that point, even though I was
Speaker 1: still a line cheap dog. The first year, I just
Speaker 1: knew I was in love. I was just like, this
Speaker 1: is who the fuck Mary. So even if I would
Speaker 1: have went and did ten other projects with other producers
Speaker 1: at that point, I never wanted to be produceduced by
Speaker 1: anybody in that way, but LP so out there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's one of the things that's really unique for you
Speaker 1: guys in today's world is, first of all, you're a
Speaker 1: rap group. There's almost none and you're a rap group
Speaker 1: that has a singular production style. Nobody, not even individual
Speaker 1: rappers have that anymore. Nobody is coming from one place
Speaker 1: production style. It's always a lot of voices musically on
Speaker 1: every on every album. So this is a very unique
Speaker 1: throwback situation. Yet it sounds yet it sounds super modern
Speaker 1: at the same time. It's it's like traditional and cutting
Speaker 1: edge mixed in one. But again, but yeah, we but
Speaker 1: we we me and mine both grew up on all
Speaker 1: of the ship from your error that you were involved in,
Speaker 1: and that's how that stuff was and that's and that's
Speaker 1: how and so you know, we I think I'll talk
Speaker 1: about this a lot, but like our our age and
Speaker 1: our reference point has been utilized for us as a
Speaker 1: as a weapon to some degree, because we have a
Speaker 1: reference that at this point, there's enough time between that
Speaker 1: era and now where there aren't that many people who
Speaker 1: are active, like really on the cutting edge right now
Speaker 1: who legitimately have that reference, like you know, like who
Speaker 1: legitimately you know, know what it was like to listen
Speaker 1: to in Control Volume one with Marlon Mall when it
Speaker 1: first came out, you know what I mean. And the
Speaker 1: first Posse wreck, the first posse Cut album where a
Speaker 1: producer was saying, I'm producing this and I'm putting different
Speaker 1: voices together. There are people who don't remember what it
Speaker 1: was like to listen to Public Enemy when they came out,
Speaker 1: and or to BDP and understand. You know that people
Speaker 1: had the ability to craft the sound. You know, ultramagnetic mcs,
Speaker 1: you know, said said g also for BDP. But like
Speaker 1: we're not too rapper is looking for being. This is
Speaker 1: a musical operation like it. You know, we have a sound,
Speaker 1: and you know it's based in the sound that that
Speaker 1: I created, but it is evolved because of our partnership.
Speaker 1: Like the reason why I run the Jewels sounds the
Speaker 1: way it does now as opposed to like what I
Speaker 1: was making for my own shit is because when I
Speaker 1: knew when I got one Mike, I'm a producer. So
Speaker 1: I was like, well, I need I need to get
Speaker 1: out of my way or get out of Mike's way
Speaker 1: in a sense, when I was like, all right, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna produce Mike's whole album, I need to open up
Speaker 1: and be and know and understand and open up and
Speaker 1: what I do in reference to who Mike is and
Speaker 1: what his roots are too, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So that added like that, that added like a bounce,
Speaker 1: that added like and you know another element of it
Speaker 1: because I wanted to give Mike the best platform to
Speaker 1: be able to do everything that he was like really
Speaker 1: in the pocket on and I transferred over to Run
Speaker 1: the Jewels and it built that's you know, that ended
Speaker 1: up building that sounds. So the real foundation of Run
Speaker 1: the Jewels production is a real combination of of influences
Speaker 1: to a degree as as seen through me, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, as filtered through me and like with me,
Speaker 1: Like the reason I'm not out there producing for a
Speaker 1: bunch of other people is because I'm in Run the Jewels,
Speaker 1: Like I don't, I don't have a better group to
Speaker 1: produce for it than Run the Jewels. Like that's for me,
Speaker 1: That's what I want to do because Mike always trusted me,
Speaker 1: like and that was one of them. That was I
Speaker 1: think one of the deciding factors for me as a
Speaker 1: as a as an artist to be like, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna run with this dude, because he gave me a
Speaker 1: gift that that some people don't really want to give
Speaker 1: you you know, you're you know, he'd a bis rapper
Speaker 1: producer on mother fucking Earth and that's see, that's see,
Speaker 1: that's it. But but but it's it's rare even when
Speaker 1: you're called. I've done a lot of different novels for
Speaker 1: different rappers, you know, in the past, and the ones
Speaker 1: where there was that sort of trust there, the one
Speaker 1: that we were, the ones that were the most exciting
Speaker 1: for me, you know what I mean. Mike was always
Speaker 1: really open. Mike was always open to my ship, and
Speaker 1: which is cool because my shit is a little weird.
Speaker 1: The ship is a little weirder than the you know,
Speaker 1: it is um it always was. It was always a
Speaker 1: little jagged, a little dissonant, a little from left field.
Speaker 1: You know, that's what's ill like you're not an imitator, like,
Speaker 1: that's the illest ship. Also raped nerd ship. So many
Speaker 1: people imitated, and I don't even mean in a bad
Speaker 1: way because if I hadn't been a twelve year old
Speaker 1: imitating ice Cube, I never would have developed my style.
Speaker 1: Early NWA, early ghetto Boys, early Shiit references run DMC.
Speaker 1: A lot of IT references run DMC in terms of
Speaker 1: the way they were patterns, the beats, but the good
Speaker 1: ones they rolled to the top because they innovated as
Speaker 1: they imitate the imitate you innovator, and before you know it,
Speaker 1: you've made your own thing. What's ill about your ship?
Speaker 1: And what's weird? And what I love about the weirdness
Speaker 1: of it is this a progression of the ship we
Speaker 1: grew up on. And it's never been a cheap imitation.
Speaker 1: It has never been all. I've never walked in a
Speaker 1: room and all just says, yeah, I just went and chopped.
Speaker 1: The DC said, I'm like, nah, man l w and
Speaker 1: fould and recreate and and I'm like, it's sound, but
Speaker 1: it is this What the fuck have you done? And
Speaker 1: before you know it we wrapping our ass off. And
Speaker 1: that's what I love about. He ain't a viterer, he
Speaker 1: ain't a swash swiper. He will take an influence from
Speaker 1: our twelve year old or thirteen year old or conversation
Speaker 1: about BDPN. He'll give something that feels like that to me.
Speaker 1: But I'll never I don't. I never even get the
Speaker 1: urge to swipe a pattern from Chris. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. It's just that I feel like Chris when
Speaker 1: I'm wrapping this fit. And that's that's I don't know
Speaker 1: what the call that I don't know what he does,
Speaker 1: but the weirdness is something I trust because it's from
Speaker 1: a pure place and it's not just swagswicking. So he
Speaker 1: I just want to say, I love you Weirds. Keep
Speaker 1: that weird shit coming, bro for real. Choice, I don't
Speaker 1: have a choice. I wanted to be epm D you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like I never, I could never.
Speaker 1: One day I just woke up. Remember when I first
Speaker 1: started doing records and people were like, it's so fucking crazy,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, what are you talking about? This just
Speaker 1: sounds like this. It just sounds like normal done pimp
Speaker 1: out to me. And it took me a while to
Speaker 1: be like maybe it is, Like maybe I'm weird. What
Speaker 1: was crazy though, it's with the epm V reference. I remember,
Speaker 1: like if you look all through the Reggie Reggie Noble ship,
Speaker 1: they did funk in a way that was not West Coast,
Speaker 1: because West Coast did funk counter bright Kunda and sometimes
Speaker 1: really if it was but if it was pure, pure
Speaker 1: West Coast, it damn it even got counter so funky
Speaker 1: it became something that was like your parents shit, like
Speaker 1: boogie almost right. And I don't mean that in a
Speaker 1: bad way to pun but it was it was a
Speaker 1: boogyesh EPMD did that funk that was like, it was nasty,
Speaker 1: it was ride, it was it was something else man
Speaker 1: and it was dark and it was sewery, red and grimy.
Speaker 1: And you've took that into take that influence into some wilder, weirder,
Speaker 1: more spaced out like if their ship will had us
Speaker 1: on the gunners and sewers, it was when the water
Speaker 1: goes down into the guns and sewers, Like what kind
Speaker 1: of wild, weird shit it's under the subways. And for me,
Speaker 1: a rap nerve from the South, that's hole. I always
Speaker 1: wanted to be able to do that kind of shit
Speaker 1: with those kind of people like Premiere. Being from Texas
Speaker 1: was one of the things that kept me rapping. I
Speaker 1: was like, Yo, prem is from Texas. Oh, we can
Speaker 1: do this scarface loving New York kip hoop. So it's
Speaker 1: a dream to me to wrap it. So, even though
Speaker 1: I'm not a New York MC, my Southern take on
Speaker 1: New York m scene for some reason locks right into
Speaker 1: what L does in a way that I couldn't get
Speaker 1: in the South for much of my career. Even though
Speaker 1: people kind of felt where I was coming from it
Speaker 1: wasn't from that soil. And I think that hybrid is
Speaker 1: something that has made out sound something that that is
Speaker 1: there's no bounds to it, you know. I remember when
Speaker 1: Bunby called me Elle like second album, like one of
Speaker 1: the Jews too, and he said, kill keep doing what
Speaker 1: y'all doing, because you guys are going to have an
Speaker 1: opportunity to be like outcasts. And I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: if that's what you smiling like, I uh, you know,
Speaker 1: thank you. He say no. He say no, He say,
Speaker 1: because they locked me and Pimp into this thing, even
Speaker 1: though Pimp would want to expand and do this. Even
Speaker 1: though he says they locked us in. He said, that's
Speaker 1: not bad. We've had a he say, Ball and G.
Speaker 1: People have a perception. He say, people have no perceptions
Speaker 1: of y'all. Y'all just have the expectation of whatever you want.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be willing to take the rial with you.
Speaker 1: When he said, that's a freedom, so embrace that. So
Speaker 1: I've never shot away from a lot of Elle's ideas
Speaker 1: because my OLGS was just like, whatever the thing y'all
Speaker 1: doing can take you guys past regionalism, past hip hop elitism,
Speaker 1: past past southern um stereotypisms like two Chains is on
Speaker 1: this record in big part because he's an LP fan.
Speaker 1: He's my friend, you know what I'm saying. I loved
Speaker 1: his rap, He's love my rap for years. But he
Speaker 1: said I gotta get on the track with the White Man.
Speaker 1: You know, he loves it. And that's such a that's
Speaker 1: a beautiful thing because that doesn't happen otherwise. And before
Speaker 1: you know it, and I would never say this because
Speaker 1: there's such a huge act to me. Before you know it,
Speaker 1: we are accepted, like my items. We accepted like Cass.
Speaker 1: We can go a lot of different places, do a
Speaker 1: lot of different things because I trust the weirdness that's LP.
Speaker 1: That's this this beautiful thing. You know, he's produced for
Speaker 1: jez before. If I was geez El would have been lud.
Speaker 1: He would have did Motivation three. You know. But thank god,
Speaker 1: thank you Jeeves. I love you brother. It worked out.
Speaker 1: I will say that while you're from the South, it
Speaker 1: has a distinctly East Coast sound between the two of you,
Speaker 1: it is it is definitely East Coast rap music. And
Speaker 1: that's my fault because that's those are my for sure,
Speaker 1: my roots. And like I said, but but but but
Speaker 1: my partnership of Mike and my interest in rap music
Speaker 1: in general, Like, I love all that shit. I always
Speaker 1: love music from the South, I love music from the West,
Speaker 1: I love music from That's something I think that for
Speaker 1: a long time, people made a certain assumption about me,
Speaker 1: that I was sort of I came from a certain ilk,
Speaker 1: and that I was only appreciative of a certain type
Speaker 1: of thing. I take what I take, what I feel
Speaker 1: out of those influences and add them in, and I
Speaker 1: think that the hybrid shit is the shit that's the
Speaker 1: most potent to me, you know, Like and so me
Speaker 1: and Mike are just immediately a hybrid and naturally a hybrid.
Speaker 1: It's it wouldn't be as powerful if it was just
Speaker 1: me on my beats. It just wouldn't be Mike coming
Speaker 1: in with a with a with a Southern style and
Speaker 1: influence just as you know, just as heavy as as
Speaker 1: the influences that we share. He comes in with the
Speaker 1: other thing and me coming in with you know, my roots.
Speaker 1: We're fucking with sound here, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like we're creating sound. Next, the next track is uh
Speaker 1: la La, which is my favorite beat on the album.
Speaker 1: Oh really, that's awesome. Tell me a little bit about
Speaker 1: how did it's like, even from a musical basis, How
Speaker 1: did it start? Did it start with the sample? How
Speaker 1: did it start? It started because I had I was
Speaker 1: plotting on that Greg Nice sample for fucking decades. It
Speaker 1: started because I always wanted to sample something. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what it was going to be. I'm just a
Speaker 1: huge Greg Nice fan, a huge Nice and Smooth fan,
Speaker 1: an unheralded great hip hop group that I feel like
Speaker 1: people aren't like should go back listening to their records
Speaker 1: because they're so fucking fun and funky and dope. So
Speaker 1: it just started with that, And it started with that
Speaker 1: little piano thing that I played and then and then
Speaker 1: chopped up, And that record is a perfect example I
Speaker 1: think of what Run the Jewels For is about spiritually
Speaker 1: in terms of the production approach, because I think more
Speaker 1: than any other record before it, one of the things
Speaker 1: that I knew going into this was like, Yo, I'm
Speaker 1: actually going to lean into my influences on this, like
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm actually going to put them on display,
Speaker 1: like might pointed out, which does not mean that I
Speaker 1: want to recreate songs from from my childhood or or um,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to try if I can to transfer
Speaker 1: the spirit of those jams, to transfer to transfer that
Speaker 1: everyone knows like there's this there's a particular type of
Speaker 1: hip hop banger that that that comes from an era
Speaker 1: before this one, that if you can nail the spirit
Speaker 1: of it will put a fucking huge smile on anyone
Speaker 1: who loves hip hop's face. It doesn't matter if you're
Speaker 1: a new hip hop fan listening to all the new
Speaker 1: styles of production or all the new ship or you're
Speaker 1: an old one. There's something special there that if you
Speaker 1: could harness it, And that's what I was hoping to
Speaker 1: try and capture with that with that beat, where it
Speaker 1: was like the eight o eights and the and the
Speaker 1: drums and everything is super modern, but you're gonna I
Speaker 1: want to I we really And that was like untried
Speaker 1: territory for Run the Jewels, Run the Jewels. Making a
Speaker 1: song punk that makes you just smile immediately was felt
Speaker 1: like it was untried territory, like damn Me or a
Speaker 1: party jam. When you hear what we're rapping about. When
Speaker 1: you actually listen to the lyrics, it's pretty hard, like
Speaker 1: it's not you know. It's one of the more meta
Speaker 1: tracks where it has a lot of hip hop references
Speaker 1: in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. I
Speaker 1: think Mike was like inspired by that feeling, right might
Speaker 1: dropped a few Jay Rue we dropped it was It's
Speaker 1: important to me to tip my hat to those man
Speaker 1: And I just got to say the Jay rule the
Speaker 1: damager homage in a big way to me because you
Speaker 1: understand you. I'm in I'm in Spanish class and miss
Speaker 1: Blades class and Ernest Hawkins just to my left, my
Speaker 1: girlfriend Teresa's to my right, and yo, we just three
Speaker 1: kids from the South that love music. So Teresa's like,
Speaker 1: you know, slim modelesque little thing, looked like a look
Speaker 1: like a good girl. And she would be fucking rapping
Speaker 1: eight Ball and MJG because our brother and Kevin was
Speaker 1: playing it. And I'm like, what the fuck? And then
Speaker 1: I come in and play records for them, and I
Speaker 1: can remember turning Ernest so on the ship like the
Speaker 1: brand Nubian turned them on the far side, but the
Speaker 1: Jay Rud the damaging ship. Me and my man Terrence
Speaker 1: Tflow Too married my cousin. We went crazy over this dude,
Speaker 1: just this dude that putilistic linguistics check out the mistics
Speaker 1: there fantastic and me fantastic. Check it. You'll get to
Speaker 1: ask you challenge my verbal to Nasty Van Acrobatic's vocabulary callistep.
Speaker 1: I'm just like, oh wow, I probably should practice more.
Speaker 1: I'm spending too much time fucking. So I always wanted
Speaker 1: to give him that, you know what I'm saying, So
Speaker 1: thank you know what's funny? Man? So about about jayru What? Well,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you if you don't know the first So
Speaker 1: in the in the nineties, when I was making my
Speaker 1: rep in the scene basically as a rapper, and the
Speaker 1: biggest thing that could that could happen for you was
Speaker 1: that you could get on Stretch Arms Trying and Bobato's
Speaker 1: show and you can and they could think that you're
Speaker 1: dope enough to bring you up to freestyle on their show.
Speaker 1: And that was how I made my name, that you know,
Speaker 1: sort of at the very beginning of Company Flow. The
Speaker 1: first time I was ever invited up there was in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three and Stretch Armstrong asked me what beat
Speaker 1: I wanted a freestyle. So the first beat that I
Speaker 1: ever freestyle too was over the come Clean by Jerry
Speaker 1: the Damager. Yeah, boom boom boom was just the nastiest
Speaker 1: thing that anyone had ever heard ever at the time,
Speaker 1: and it just made it just made every rapper just
Speaker 1: be like, oh my god, I have to I have
Speaker 1: to have a beat like that. I have to I
Speaker 1: have to be able to fucking rhyme like that. Like
Speaker 1: and Jru actually comes to Um comes to max Fish,
Speaker 1: which is a bar that that I owned in New
Speaker 1: York that I called in New York. Jru still comes around.
Speaker 1: So he showed love to me. Man. It just I
Speaker 1: was like a fucking goofy ass kid on the other
Speaker 1: side of the internet, just like, oh man, thank you
Speaker 1: man him and God bless the dead dirt dog like
Speaker 1: Oldie be Like I love the wou Tang as a
Speaker 1: collective and individual, so you know how you picked people
Speaker 1: you're patting yourself after, like, um, I want the Crescy
Speaker 1: moaning stall um because drug dealers in my neighborhood. That
Speaker 1: was really cool and rap faurn Ward. So it was
Speaker 1: like that's that's me right there. I'm in the woo
Speaker 1: way the truck Jury's ghost facing fluence. But when I
Speaker 1: think about the polars in the wolf, the Jessum liquid
Speaker 1: Sore is one of the most coldly calculating, beautiful just
Speaker 1: hip hop the record It is Dean's less and then
Speaker 1: the king of absurdity and wildness, Brooklyn Zoo ode B
Speaker 1: makes this record that's to me a polar opposite of
Speaker 1: but Man that he was one of the greatest influences
Speaker 1: of letting go Me and my two of my children's
Speaker 1: mother would play that. She was a Southern too love music,
Speaker 1: But me and Mimi would just play that shit every
Speaker 1: fucking day. So I always wanted to get Dirt Dogs flowers.
Speaker 1: I never got a chance to meet the God, but
Speaker 1: I met Ghost, met relationship with Raider. But I'm blessed too.
Speaker 1: But had I been met Dirt Dog Man, I would
Speaker 1: I would have just out of bout to him because
Speaker 1: his style was so effeless, so wild, so entertaining. It
Speaker 1: was favored, you know what I'm saying, Like we love
Speaker 1: Favor in Atlanta. Favo can do the same three records
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life. I hire him for
Speaker 1: all my birthday parties. I hire hire for stadiums because
Speaker 1: he is genuinely energy and it's it's the same as Flame.
Speaker 1: I don't care how old Flame gets how wow. The
Speaker 1: outfit flavor Flame always gives me an energy that I'm
Speaker 1: mann if I'm gonna levy your avoid game. And Dirt
Speaker 1: I always wanted to give Dirt that, So you know,
Speaker 1: it's the be kind of the beat kind of reminded you,
Speaker 1: I think of of oh baby, I like it's like again,
Speaker 1: I think I think it was because the spirit of
Speaker 1: that beat, it just you know, it brought that out
Speaker 1: in us, and and uh, it was just something that
Speaker 1: you know, Rick, we're always like, like when you're making
Speaker 1: albums and you have a body of work, you're not
Speaker 1: when you're like with us, we're not really competing or
Speaker 1: or thinking about it in terms of what are our
Speaker 1: contemporaries doing. We're sort of thinking about it in terms
Speaker 1: of what what have we done? What are what have
Speaker 1: we not mind yet of? That's ours? You know that like,
Speaker 1: And I think it's the reason why we came out
Speaker 1: the first song just Blazing at the Gate, because I'm
Speaker 1: round the Jewels. Three. We decided that it would be
Speaker 1: interesting to start with a more contemplative jam, you know,
Speaker 1: and um, once we got that out of our system,
Speaker 1: I think we wanted to do the opposite of that,
Speaker 1: and and and so this jam ooh La Lab it
Speaker 1: was really also that it was also like, yo, let's
Speaker 1: let's make a fucking classic hip hop party banger that
Speaker 1: translates now that actually translates that, and now it's getting
Speaker 1: played on fucking radio like with contemporary shit, which is
Speaker 1: really crazy. And it's just and it's it's a feeling.
Speaker 1: It's a feeling that I don't think you hear on
Speaker 1: the on the radio, much like I don't think that
Speaker 1: that vibe is apart from that song right now, I
Speaker 1: don't think you would hear that vibe any other people's shit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so great, and you got premiere on the track add
Speaker 1: too Many And we had to give Greg Nice a
Speaker 1: feature credit because it was like we didn't want to
Speaker 1: just we didn't want to just take Greg Nice and
Speaker 1: turn it into something modern. We wanted to bring Greg
Speaker 1: Nice with us. We wanted people to understand who he was,
Speaker 1: even if they didn't get really who his history and
Speaker 1: Runner Jules has been like an amazing excuse for us
Speaker 1: to do right by the people that we admire, you know,
Speaker 1: to try and do right by the people that we admire.
Speaker 1: So when we've been lucky enough to collaborate with heroes
Speaker 1: of our premiere is a hero. Greg Knice is a hero.
Speaker 1: You know. We try and use our platform to really
Speaker 1: honor them. You know, that's what you're supposed to do.
Speaker 1: Like this ship is exposure. Like I think of how
Speaker 1: many like I know Bob James because of rap music.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, I know who it is,
Speaker 1: like if it if it wasn't for Like think about
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones, man, I fought enough for life because
Speaker 1: they took Muddy Waters on tour. Like you, like you
Speaker 1: think about how dope that is you exposing your audience
Speaker 1: to your influences and great music. Like my thirteen year
Speaker 1: old daughter listen to Twick. Her twenty six year old
Speaker 1: brother listens to Dwick. He's been listening to Dwick since
Speaker 1: he was thirteen. But thirteen, she's not supposed to think,
Speaker 1: but her big brother and her dad think her cool.
Speaker 1: But she does because she looked up Greg Nice, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. She liked his voice. She she's curious,
Speaker 1: so she's on a pathway to discovering dope shit. And
Speaker 1: that's all I ever wanted for rap music. I remember
Speaker 1: when they used to tell us this shit isn't gonna last,
Speaker 1: It isn't gonna be here. It's just like new wave.
Speaker 1: It's gonna come and it is gonna come and go
Speaker 1: time exactly. And it's almost fifty now, and now we
Speaker 1: get to Now we get to do the right thing
Speaker 1: by the people sometimes who the right thing wasn't done
Speaker 1: by you know what I'm saying. And that's why I
Speaker 1: was important for me to have the feature. It was
Speaker 1: important to half form mere actually cut, because these things
Speaker 1: need to become relative. You need to know they're certain
Speaker 1: shit that I still don't even know. And I've been
Speaker 1: listening to this shit over half my life now, and
Speaker 1: I just know that there's a little dolt producer somewhere
Speaker 1: in the South, somewhere here who's going to get influenced
Speaker 1: by that. He's going to flip that ship and the
Speaker 1: world is going to go nuts. And that's the beauty
Speaker 1: of right. Can we just bring up the fact that
Speaker 1: we're talking to a dude who, through hip hop music,
Speaker 1: turned us onto rock music. I mean, none of us
Speaker 1: knew who the fuck Aerosmith was. We didn't know who
Speaker 1: Aerosmith was, man Like, we didn't like, we didn't we
Speaker 1: didn't know really probably at that age who led Zeppelin was,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like we learned about this
Speaker 1: ship through the beastis we learned about it through run DMC.
Speaker 1: Like this is a gift that you gave our generation,
Speaker 1: your your influences combined with something new. It's no different
Speaker 1: than what we're you know than even referencing your own
Speaker 1: form of your own genre, but referencing at another time
Speaker 1: of it. You know. And we're very much not interested
Speaker 1: in making retro music. But we know that what our
Speaker 1: what our strengths are, man Like, our strengths are not
Speaker 1: making the new stuff that people are making. Like like,
Speaker 1: our strengths are that we have a history. Our strengths
Speaker 1: are that we have a musical history of influence. And
Speaker 1: so we just tried to really, you know, we just
Speaker 1: tried to like do right by it. You know. It's
Speaker 1: one of the things that made the music that we
Speaker 1: were making similar to the way you do it, was
Speaker 1: that we always thought of it as a group. It
Speaker 1: was always a group. Even even Ella cool J. I
Speaker 1: thought of it as Ella Coolj as a group. And
Speaker 1: it's got a particular sound and it's different than pop music.
Speaker 1: Pop music. You have a singer and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of different producers. It's always been that way, like a
Speaker 1: series of singles put together, but it didn't have a
Speaker 1: point of view, whereas rock groups tended to have a
Speaker 1: point of view where all of it felt like was
Speaker 1: coming from the same place. And again you're you're maybe
Speaker 1: the only group doing it now. That that carries on
Speaker 1: that tradition of um the credibility of rock music brought
Speaker 1: through hip hop, that's interesting. I'll say the rock tradition,
Speaker 1: the rock tradition. Sure, sure, I feel that because for me,
Speaker 1: like even locking In going back to me saying I
Speaker 1: really felt like this was supposed to be when when
Speaker 1: we were like, yeah, we're gonna do the one or two,
Speaker 1: it was like we got it four. We're not a
Speaker 1: real group till we get four albums in like and
Speaker 1: I got that from from from from zeppyln Like, I
Speaker 1: got that directly from Zeppelin because there are times in
Speaker 1: my youth where I've played I've just played them, I
Speaker 1: just all day, I'm just fucking around and they're just
Speaker 1: playing them in my room and it's a dark because
Speaker 1: I wanted to rap over the ship I was listening to.
Speaker 1: I wanted to wrap over black sackers like I remember
Speaker 1: when when the Roll Warriors were coming to Rank No No,
Speaker 1: I would be rapping. How'd you jug out like I wanted?
Speaker 1: I wanted that, I remember it. So when you chop
Speaker 1: rocks there, I'm just like a break. I'm this motherfuck
Speaker 1: this is amazing. The authority that that Running d wrapped
Speaker 1: with was, and it was so opposite because my mother
Speaker 1: was sixteen, So rapp was Curtis Blow, you know it was.
Speaker 1: It was who dns. It was gentlemanly, it was slick,
Speaker 1: it was player. It was silk shirts and they had
Speaker 1: all you know what I'm saying, the shark skinned pads
Speaker 1: with you know, they may have them on some shoes.
Speaker 1: It was some adult shit, even because my mom was older.
Speaker 1: But when that black denim showed up and those motherfuckers
Speaker 1: started jackets accompanied to this dark music that I already
Speaker 1: liked with rock and the guitars, I liked it because
Speaker 1: my grandparents listened to blue so I was used to guitar.
Speaker 1: But it was totally different. But it felt like it
Speaker 1: was supposed to be. But when I went to like school,
Speaker 1: nobody gave a fuck. Did I listen to led Zepeline
Speaker 1: or or our friends Offenhead introduced us to Queen. They
Speaker 1: didn't give a shit, but your music gave me that
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, so this is what you're supposed
Speaker 1: to do. Was the first punk? Ship was the first
Speaker 1: punk Like, like, yo, I just want to say this
Speaker 1: thought real quick before we lose, before I lose it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: rap music is the first form of music, first form
Speaker 1: of production, first form of music that I think ever
Speaker 1: where if you were a rap music fan or a
Speaker 1: producer of rap music made you think about, made you
Speaker 1: listen to other music with the idea of this is dope.
Speaker 1: But imagine if this were a fucking beat. Imagine if
Speaker 1: this were a rap song but rap music, man, like
Speaker 1: what it made me do throughout my whole life and
Speaker 1: really starting with your whole crew, because your whole crew
Speaker 1: were the first ones that were like, uh no, we're
Speaker 1: not wearing tassels, We're fucking we're killers. We're coming out
Speaker 1: savagely fucking destroytion and we're stripping it down and we are.
Speaker 1: And you know, it was the first like super abrasive,
Speaker 1: super aggressive shit to come out that because you you
Speaker 1: had something a playoff, and you had that whole era
Speaker 1: that Mike talking about the playoff of and to differentiate
Speaker 1: yourself say actually, we're not that, we're the new breed,
Speaker 1: like this is stripping all of that away. No more,
Speaker 1: mister nice guy shit, you know what I mean? And well,
Speaker 1: we didn't. We didn't like R and B. So that
Speaker 1: it was like the distinction between the earliest rap records
Speaker 1: were a continuation of R and B with people rapping
Speaker 1: on them, and we were we weren't. That was not
Speaker 1: our lineage. It was more rock punk, rock, drum machines,
Speaker 1: craft work, you know, just different different, uh, different fluences.
Speaker 1: So it was more um, the b boy mentality same
Speaker 1: and that's the same lineage that I have always had,
Speaker 1: was always like, yo, I'm not actually, I mean, I
Speaker 1: love all of this ship, but my direct influences, it's not.
Speaker 1: It's not sampling soul records. It's not because it's because
Speaker 1: I was interested in other disparate sounds. I was interested
Speaker 1: in other other combining other ship. But it's all respected. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I'll say also, I would chop up soul records
Speaker 1: all day just to make the point. It's like, it's
Speaker 1: more like when you think of what R and B
Speaker 1: was in the eighties, exactly exactly. That was what we
Speaker 1: didn't want. Buddy. What's dope about hip hop to me
Speaker 1: is a sicular because the last record I ever bought
Speaker 1: from my grandfather was Buddy Guys Sweet Tea, and I've
Speaker 1: grown up listening to Buddy Gut my grandfather and Sweet Tea.
Speaker 1: Did it sound like Buddy Guy, But the sound was
Speaker 1: so heavily influenced that he fit right in. It was
Speaker 1: more electronic than I had heard. It was almost as
Speaker 1: though Porta's head had influenced Buddy. But we know Buddy
Speaker 1: got more than likely influenced Portis said and many others
Speaker 1: after him. But what the adult shit about rap was?
Speaker 1: Growing up with my grandparents, they played the blues, so
Speaker 1: it was either it was either the blues or gospel.
Speaker 1: That's what I was hearing rock music, And the reason
Speaker 1: that I realized later why I love Zeppelin so much
Speaker 1: was because they were doing their interpretation of what the
Speaker 1: blues was. The reason I understood the Stones from the
Speaker 1: first time I heard them is you know, oh my,
Speaker 1: this is like the ship my grandmother listens to. It
Speaker 1: sounds different, but it ends the same spirit. What you
Speaker 1: did with rock music was almost bringing the blues home.
Speaker 1: Because because lyrically Rapp is as dark. Sometimes it's the
Speaker 1: Blues without being sad, Like the Blues could say some
Speaker 1: some dark things right, you know, but but it not
Speaker 1: be sad. I see my grandparents dancing and and my
Speaker 1: other grandma's house, my uncle's an some drink too much
Speaker 1: with me dancing, and people with joy Field. But some
Speaker 1: of the songs were like who. Rap was aggressive and
Speaker 1: it could hit hard, but it never saddened me. It
Speaker 1: made me feel proud, like in the middle of the
Speaker 1: eighties when the world was going crazy to see running
Speaker 1: d out amongst the people wrapping their ass off, because
Speaker 1: you gotta think I'm in Atlanta doing Atlanta, missing the murder.
Speaker 1: So there literally is a feel that I can leave
Speaker 1: the house at seven years old and I cannot make
Speaker 1: it home. And Rap helped me break whatever fear that
Speaker 1: was that I had as a child, that it was
Speaker 1: I think, I don't think Wayne Williams gets arrested to
Speaker 1: eighty two eighty two, I'm seven. I'm already walking home
Speaker 1: back and forth to the bus stop by myself. I've
Speaker 1: already figured out how to sneak on the Martyr train
Speaker 1: and just go on adventures by myself before I go,
Speaker 1: you know, get back from so I figured shit out,
Speaker 1: but I could have not made it. A Part of
Speaker 1: the confidence that happens in eighty two, eighty three, eighty
Speaker 1: four is that music changes for me, Like like I say, man,
Speaker 1: when I've seen the Fat Boys, when I seen Rue DMC,
Speaker 1: when I seen Cool J, when I was like, this
Speaker 1: isn't this isn't what my mom's listening to. This shit
Speaker 1: makes me pulp my chests out, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And it's it's like the Blues came Home, you know,
Speaker 1: and and it just it It's it's crazy how things
Speaker 1: seem secular like that because I know that Crump music
Speaker 1: there literally was a rock movement in Atlanta for like
Speaker 1: nine months to a year and a half and it's amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: music it relates to It relates back to Lula Lah
Speaker 1: because like it's like I said, we're not saying soft
Speaker 1: shit on that record, but not saying party shit. You know,
Speaker 1: I I'm I'm saying fucking you know, you're suffering a scrumptures,
Speaker 1: so put your you know, they'll put your kids in
Speaker 1: the oven. Like this is not if you really look
Speaker 1: at the lyrics that we're spitting. It's something. It's some
Speaker 1: it's some almodamn near you know, militant shit at times,
Speaker 1: and it's certainly some paranoid shit at times. But I
Speaker 1: think that there's something about truth that is funky and
Speaker 1: fun even if truth is hard, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Truth brings joy. Truth doesn't have to be soft, and
Speaker 1: joy doesn't have to be soft either. Like joy is
Speaker 1: a result, it's not a sound. You know. Um, if
Speaker 1: you can create a record that creates joy, it didn't
Speaker 1: mean that you just made something that sounded happy, you know,
Speaker 1: it just meant that the result was joy, you know.
Speaker 1: And and it's and often the lyrics will be hard.
Speaker 1: It doesn't leave you with a heavy feeling. It's and
Speaker 1: it's usually in the context of the things around it.
Speaker 1: You know, you'll be the hardest lyric and then four
Speaker 1: bars later it's a joke, you know, and it's all good.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like it's hip hop. It's really all
Speaker 1: hip hop. No, no, thank you for saying that, because
Speaker 1: that's something that we like, really take. We hold that importantly,
Speaker 1: you know, we really hold like we hold the we
Speaker 1: hold the jokes in just as high regard as we
Speaker 1: hold those moments of real seriousness straight up, And I
Speaker 1: think it's more the ability to get serious message over
Speaker 1: in a way that people can take. It often involves
Speaker 1: that because if, if all, if you feel like a
Speaker 1: record is just lecturing at you and telling you what
Speaker 1: to do, people don't want to be sermonized. No, you know,
Speaker 1: doesn't work like that. That's why I always hate when
Speaker 1: people go into the there's entertainment and whether I ju
Speaker 1: personally lyrically, But the goal is to be the hardest
Speaker 1: motherfucker on the v That's that's that's you know, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm saying, you've learned what they call a twist and
Speaker 1: turns after But the goal, if your gym is is
Speaker 1: to outflip the fuck out of everybody and look great
Speaker 1: doing it. So on a raw artistic level, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, that's what it's this shit is about.
Speaker 1: And I don't I'm careful or I'm safe and run
Speaker 1: the jewels and that that's not allowed to happen. Sorry,
Speaker 1: we're still getting this fucking Joe far. It's one of
Speaker 1: the things about about protest songs. If you're if you're
Speaker 1: aiming to make a protest song, it usually fails. Yes,
Speaker 1: the best protest songs were people singing about their internal struggle,
Speaker 1: and then those songs become turned into protest songs. But
Speaker 1: rarely are they written from that perspective, because if you
Speaker 1: write it from that perspective, it doesn't really break through.
Speaker 1: It doesn't doesn't have the energy to transcend. Like you
Speaker 1: don't want to be and you don't want to be um.
Speaker 1: You don't want to be told and never do drugs
Speaker 1: by someone who's never done drugs. You want to You
Speaker 1: want to hear that shift from somebody who did drugs
Speaker 1: all their life and now they can barely fucking talk.
Speaker 1: That's someone I'll listen to, you know, like, oh you're interesting,
Speaker 1: you know. But and even even then, even then, though
Speaker 1: I don't want them telling me what to do, I
Speaker 1: don't mind hearing there. I'm happy to hear their story
Speaker 1: and maybe I can learn from it. But I want
Speaker 1: to make up my own mind correct and the right.
Speaker 1: And most of those motherfuckers they won't tell you shit
Speaker 1: because they know it's more complicated than that, you know,
Speaker 1: they know that it's not that easy. They know that
Speaker 1: it's not just about do the right here's the clear
Speaker 1: cut right thing. Because anybody who's been through some shit
Speaker 1: knows the nuance of being through some shit, and they
Speaker 1: know that they were unreachable by anybody with piety. Piety
Speaker 1: does not reach your soul, It does not reach your heart.
Speaker 1: It doesn't really mean anything to anybody who's got any
Speaker 1: grit or who's got any issues that they're dealing with.
Speaker 1: It's the reaction you're gonna get from that is, fuck you, motherfucker.
Speaker 1: Don't tell me what the fuck to do. You don't
Speaker 1: know me, stop fucking lecturing me. And that is the
Speaker 1: exact opposite of what me and Mike would ever want
Speaker 1: to be for anybody, you know. And this record that
Speaker 1: we made is not a protest album in creation it was.
Speaker 1: It's just an album of two dudes talking their ship
Speaker 1: and saying what they need to say. But this shit
Speaker 1: landed in the middle of a protest time, and so
Speaker 1: all of those sentiments that we were already already in
Speaker 1: our hearts and in our minds and naturally came out
Speaker 1: not in the way that we wanted to, you know,
Speaker 1: react to something. We're reacting to life like shit that's
Speaker 1: already been here, and it landed at a time that
Speaker 1: resonated with people. And I think that the reason why
Speaker 1: it did is because we're not we're not lecturing motherfucker's
Speaker 1: we're we're we're painting pictures where we're you know, we're flawed.
Speaker 1: These are anti heroes, these are not these are not
Speaker 1: princes of of of righteousness and goodness. We're we're fucked up,
Speaker 1: you know. Like I think that's what makes it probably
Speaker 1: the most successful protest music being made today for that
Speaker 1: for exactly that reason. It's coming from a spirit of
Speaker 1: reality and not a spirit of telling people what to
Speaker 1: do right or what to think or how to be right.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with Killer Mike and LP. After
Speaker 1: a quick break, we're back with the rest of Rick's
Speaker 1: conversation with Round the Jewels. Something else that's interesting about
Speaker 1: the timing of your album and the content on it
Speaker 1: is in the history of music that has a political
Speaker 1: side to it, Like if we think in nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: John Lennon wrote give piece a chance, and put out
Speaker 1: and give Piece a chance. That was in nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 1: No one has given piece a chance since nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 1: It did not happen. You had you have lyrics about
Speaker 1: slave owners, pictures on bills and simultaneously we see statues
Speaker 1: being pulled down of these slaveholders. That's unbelievable. Shout out
Speaker 1: to Farrell and the and the reason, and shout out
Speaker 1: to you because the reason why he's on our record
Speaker 1: is because we were in your studio and you had
Speaker 1: him over. It is surreal. I'm not gonna lie. It
Speaker 1: is surreal. And you know you were there, man, you
Speaker 1: saw us making his music. None of this ship was
Speaker 1: going on like this. It wasn't. It wasn't in the
Speaker 1: public consciousness at all. I mean, you know, not at all.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's crazy. Let's let's talk more about that track.
Speaker 1: About the track with Farrell? How did I understand you
Speaker 1: met him at the studio and then how to come
Speaker 1: together When he left the studio, he was like, let
Speaker 1: me know if you need anything. And we had that,
Speaker 1: we had that beat, we had, we actually had the verses.
Speaker 1: We just didn't have a hook. I think as soon
Speaker 1: as soon as we recognize that we didn't have a hook,
Speaker 1: it was was very very soon after Farrell had been like,
Speaker 1: let let me know if you need anything, and I
Speaker 1: think it was just really obvious to us. We were like,
Speaker 1: let's let's take him up on that. Let's see what
Speaker 1: he'll do, because he's a genius. I mean, he's like
Speaker 1: we knew that he would write something great, and we
Speaker 1: had no idea what it would be, no idea it
Speaker 1: could have been. He could have been saying a word,
Speaker 1: he could have just repeated a word, and it probably
Speaker 1: would have been just fucking dope. I give you know,
Speaker 1: I give I give him so much respect because I
Speaker 1: was blown I'm blown away when people are generous with
Speaker 1: their with their artistic shit, when they don't have to be,
Speaker 1: you know, someone in f us position. He could have
Speaker 1: given us pretty much anything, and we would have thought
Speaker 1: it was the ship. It didn't have to be really
Speaker 1: connecting to what we were saying. But he clearly really
Speaker 1: listened to what we were saying, and he connected it
Speaker 1: in a way that I don't think that we even
Speaker 1: knew it could be connected. You know, he wrote that
Speaker 1: hook and and it was not the We didn't know
Speaker 1: which Farrell we were going to be getting. We didn't
Speaker 1: know which side of him we were going to be getting.
Speaker 1: When we heard that ship, we were like, oh, Pharrell
Speaker 1: came into our world and and and stood up in
Speaker 1: it and that's and that was a huge honor to
Speaker 1: you know, in my mind was like wow, man, like
Speaker 1: we're really work, you know, to Mark. In our minds,
Speaker 1: we're still just these underground dudes, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like we're still in that world. We were there our
Speaker 1: whole careers incredible. And when did Zach get on, he
Speaker 1: got on quick. There were two songs that I played Zach.
Speaker 1: This is before we had two chains locked in, so
Speaker 1: I played him two jams. We had the one jam
Speaker 1: that and it didn't make it to the album because
Speaker 1: of because of sample parents issues, and we had just
Speaker 1: and I played him both of those and the other
Speaker 1: one was a lot more straightforward. It was a lot
Speaker 1: more sort of mid tempo. It was a little bit
Speaker 1: it was probably and Zach reacted to that one, I
Speaker 1: think kind of on some shit like that's a normal
Speaker 1: pocket for me. I could get in there and kill that.
Speaker 1: And I pushed him to do the just thing because
Speaker 1: it was more of a double time, more of a
Speaker 1: modern like Bob. And I don't think anyone has ever
Speaker 1: heard Zach on something like that. I know that, and
Speaker 1: he rose to the challenge because I was just kind
Speaker 1: of like, no, I think you should I think that
Speaker 1: that would be obvious, you know, I think you should
Speaker 1: try this one. He was on Run the Jewels two
Speaker 1: and Run the Jewels three. This will be the third
Speaker 1: album of ours that you're on. You're basically the unofficial
Speaker 1: member of Run the Jewels. So he sent me that
Speaker 1: verse and he kind of presented to me like it
Speaker 1: was just a demo, and he did the verse with
Speaker 1: just an SM fifty eight, just handheld, like in his
Speaker 1: home studio, and you can hear it. It's all sort
Speaker 1: of distorted. It's got that it's got that sound. And
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, cool, So so what are
Speaker 1: you gonna do? You're gonna rerecord it? Then I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, a better mic or whatever, and he was
Speaker 1: like he was like oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. So
Speaker 1: like a couple of days later, he was like, so,
Speaker 1: so what kind of MIC do you think I should get?
Speaker 1: I was like, I was like, what do you mean?
Speaker 1: And he was like, well, you said you wanted me
Speaker 1: to do it on a different, better mic or whatever.
Speaker 1: He was like, so what kind of MIC should I buy?
Speaker 1: And I was like you don't. You don't have another MIC?
Speaker 1: And he was like nah. I was like, wait a second,
Speaker 1: he was like, I was like, so he used an
Speaker 1: SM fifty eight, a stage mic, not even at this
Speaker 1: point the stage MIC's that we're using a stage mic
Speaker 1: for that every band in America uses, no matter how
Speaker 1: small or big they are. And he told me, he
Speaker 1: was like, this is what I recorded and you probably noticed,
Speaker 1: but this is how I recorded every single Rage against
Speaker 1: the Machine song with the handheld SM fifty eight. And
Speaker 1: so what was a demo to me? Which because at
Speaker 1: first it was a demo because it was like sounded distorted,
Speaker 1: and he presented it kind of like a demo like
Speaker 1: you know, hey, I'm just what do you think I
Speaker 1: could you know, ended up being the final verse. I
Speaker 1: was like, well, I'm not going to argue. If you
Speaker 1: did Rage against the Machine on that mic, then that's
Speaker 1: about as pure as zach de la Rocha as you
Speaker 1: can get, and I'm not gonna fucking I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: fuck that up. So it was like it just ended
Speaker 1: up being that first take that he did ended up
Speaker 1: being the you know, the final verse, and that's why
Speaker 1: it sounds differently. I didn't treat it different. I didn't
Speaker 1: treat the sound. It was just like distorted. Yeah, you said,
Speaker 1: there was another track that had a sample problem. Have
Speaker 1: you had to deal with sample problems often historically? Nah,
Speaker 1: that was the first time that we had had something
Speaker 1: this that really that really like ended up throwing us
Speaker 1: off at first. It was sort of a sixties rock
Speaker 1: sort of thing anyway, So what happened was we did
Speaker 1: the song. We loved it. It was really it was like,
Speaker 1: really like, we just said, fuck it, we're gonna really
Speaker 1: make this song. We're gonna loop it up, we're gonna
Speaker 1: chop it up for the bea, we're gonna use the hook,
Speaker 1: We're gonna like, you know, we're gonna do this because
Speaker 1: we've never done this before. And we and we stepped
Speaker 1: to them and they were they were like, yeah, we're
Speaker 1: cool with it. They listened to it, they were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're cool with it. Then they said, but we want
Speaker 1: one hundred percent of everything. We want one hundred percent
Speaker 1: of the publishing, we want one hundred percent of the
Speaker 1: master and me and Mike said, but please, can we
Speaker 1: maybe have something because obviously it's not one hundred percent
Speaker 1: because we're on and they were like, nope, that's the deal.
Speaker 1: And we were like, all right, fine, fuck it, that's
Speaker 1: the deal, then that's what you get. We wanted it,
Speaker 1: they said, cool. We mixed it, we mastered the album,
Speaker 1: and when we were getting all the final little details
Speaker 1: and contracts and everything and getting ready to submit the record,
Speaker 1: they had kind of disappeared. So we started to get
Speaker 1: a little nervous and we hit them up and bind
Speaker 1: you literally about the hand in the record and get
Speaker 1: the get the second half of the advance so that
Speaker 1: we can eat. And you know, they changed their mind.
Speaker 1: They changed their mind. I just said, they changed their mind,
Speaker 1: then I want I want you to do and we
Speaker 1: were going to give them a one hundred percent. So
Speaker 1: you know, I don't. I don't. I'm not mad at
Speaker 1: anyone about that, but that was the first but it
Speaker 1: was like shit, so we ended up having to rework.
Speaker 1: It was either we were going to throw the whole
Speaker 1: song away or we were going to find something that
Speaker 1: So we threw it away and we came up with
Speaker 1: another record that was another fucking amazing And that's the
Speaker 1: beauty of tragedy. Yeah, and for bands that are out there,
Speaker 1: rap groups there there, I've seen outcasts. Um tell me
Speaker 1: why they never got into sand And I was like
Speaker 1: why because Curtis Mayfield mentored them early and he told them, essentially,
Speaker 1: you can create y'all. VIAB can be inspired by shit,
Speaker 1: and I think that we've always trusted ourselves to do that.
Speaker 1: LL get inspired and do amazing shit, but you know,
Speaker 1: you try. Sometimes sampling is dope, and when the other
Speaker 1: artists is like fuck it, fuck it, try to chuck
Speaker 1: the whole shit and make yourself do it over. So
Speaker 1: we had to take a master the album, go back
Speaker 1: after having chucked the record and put it in. And
Speaker 1: for us, my fear at first was, man, am I
Speaker 1: going to not like my album as much as I
Speaker 1: liked my album because it's missing the record that that
Speaker 1: I had? But it's not because the record that we
Speaker 1: created became its own special things. So I appreciate the
Speaker 1: challenge and I appreciate getting the turned down because it
Speaker 1: forced us to It forced us to man up, and
Speaker 1: you know, tell me about let's talk about the lyrics
Speaker 1: for Walking in the Snow, how they come about. I
Speaker 1: started it and I was really pissed off that day
Speaker 1: because I was I was feeling very I was feeling
Speaker 1: very angry about the fucking wide spread hypocrisy of like
Speaker 1: institutional hypocrisy. You know, I was feeling very fucking annoyed
Speaker 1: and pissed off philosophically. But two groups of people. The
Speaker 1: first group of people was the type of person who,
Speaker 1: because they're not connected to the suffering of other people,
Speaker 1: allow authoritarianism to rise under the guise of because they
Speaker 1: simply just don't connect to the emotional aspect of other
Speaker 1: people suffering. And so I wanted to write something that
Speaker 1: challenged the logic of that, and that said, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: even if you don't care about other people that don't
Speaker 1: look like you or that aren't in your community, even
Speaker 1: if you can't muster up the empathy to connect other
Speaker 1: human suffering to the collective human suffering, let me appeal
Speaker 1: to your logic and say how fucking stupid it is
Speaker 1: for you to allow concentration camps to be built in
Speaker 1: America because you don't care about the people that are
Speaker 1: being put in them. And let me point out to
Speaker 1: you the fallacy of it, which is that do you
Speaker 1: think that once that group of people that you don't
Speaker 1: care about is gone, that those concentration camps get dismantled
Speaker 1: and everyone throws a party. No, you have aided and
Speaker 1: been complicit in the creation of a death machine that
Speaker 1: must then be fueled and continue. And the next further
Speaker 1: down on the next person down on the totem pole,
Speaker 1: the next group down on the totem pole gets the cage,
Speaker 1: and that's probably going to be you if you're poor.
Speaker 1: And I needed to say that it was something I
Speaker 1: was screaming, and the other and the other thing I
Speaker 1: needed to say as a non religious person and as
Speaker 1: someone who didn't grow up when any dog more, didn't
Speaker 1: grow up going to church or anything like that, but
Speaker 1: considers themself somewhat spiritual and also admire certain tenants and
Speaker 1: aspects of different like you know, different religions, and take
Speaker 1: and take from them sort of things that you know,
Speaker 1: that's feel inspiring to me. One of the things that
Speaker 1: I find incredibly difficult to reckon with is the the
Speaker 1: hypocrisy of the so called religious movement in America that
Speaker 1: somehow manages to qualify exceptions for their for the very
Speaker 1: tenants that they say that they are pacing your life amount.
Speaker 1: In other words, that should not kill unless it's somebody
Speaker 1: that I don't deem worthy of having life, you know,
Speaker 1: I wanted to challenge the idea that of this sort
Speaker 1: of insipid, poisonous version of Christianity that has risen in
Speaker 1: America hand in hand and with nationalism. In other words,
Speaker 1: the idea that Jesus and his teachings and nationalism can
Speaker 1: ever share the same space and share the same you know,
Speaker 1: ideology in any way, and question the idea. Ask someone
Speaker 1: who's not even of your group and say, hey, did
Speaker 1: you ever occur to you that you may not actually
Speaker 1: be Christian? You know, if you are genuinely motivated and
Speaker 1: have focused your life around the what you say you have,
Speaker 1: which is which is what you read in a book
Speaker 1: about the teachings of Jesus Christ, which I'm familiar with,
Speaker 1: it seems like there's a bit of a class here
Speaker 1: between those teachings and what you are, what you have
Speaker 1: accepted going on. And I think you're a fucking hypocrite.
Speaker 1: And I think that if one scrap of what you
Speaker 1: purport to live your life as a guideline connected with
Speaker 1: you in a real way, you would be a completely
Speaker 1: different person. And you wouldn't allow that, You wouldn't allow
Speaker 1: this to happen. And that's just something that I just
Speaker 1: personally felt like it's been. It was brewing in me,
Speaker 1: and I needed some space. I needed to say it,
Speaker 1: and I needed to get you know, I needed to
Speaker 1: get at it in a very clear like I'm going
Speaker 1: to fight you with some logic here. If you can
Speaker 1: fight back with my logic, let me know. But I
Speaker 1: think I've just I think I'm going to dismantle you
Speaker 1: with this, and someone has to say it, and you know,
Speaker 1: and then I and then basically I passed it off
Speaker 1: to Mike, and Mike wrote one of the most devastatingly
Speaker 1: beautiful and poignant and also from a different perspective, and
Speaker 1: then looped it back around to what I had set
Speaker 1: up in the front about Christianity. So you know, I'll
Speaker 1: let Mike before Mike one more question before before we
Speaker 1: get to the continuation. Was there a triggering event that
Speaker 1: got you started on the song? Was there one moment.
Speaker 1: I can't say that I remember exactly what what what
Speaker 1: got me started on it, except to say that if
Speaker 1: you're on fucking social media and you see the the
Speaker 1: sort of the mind numbingly hypocritical group think that people
Speaker 1: are taking, that people are activated in, and the excuses
Speaker 1: that people are making for having a low or questionable
Speaker 1: moral code, and the things that they're associating with. It'll
Speaker 1: drive you fucking crazy and you want to scream to
Speaker 1: the world, but you know what, you know what doesn't
Speaker 1: do anything fucking pointing it out on Twitter. So I
Speaker 1: think I think that I was just disgusted in general
Speaker 1: with with with all that shit, and it had bubbled
Speaker 1: up at me and I just needed to write about it.
Speaker 1: I just needed to write about it. Great. So Mike,
Speaker 1: you heard what L wrote and then what was tell
Speaker 1: me what happened? Alliance incredible first of all, and he calls,
Speaker 1: you know, the nationalism or the fascism that's coming in
Speaker 1: our country is one of white angles accent protestant Um
Speaker 1: nationalism served with a big keeping marriage to constitution and
Speaker 1: vival and you know it's going to be usher in
Speaker 1: that way. And he called culturally like his people to
Speaker 1: task on that right. So if you if you look
Speaker 1: at it, that's true. I was. I was talking to
Speaker 1: white people, by the way, as absolutely absolutely to us.
Speaker 1: But white people have the option of tuning out the
Speaker 1: ranting white cousin. They do it a lot. There's always
Speaker 1: that one or two white cousins that's in the family.
Speaker 1: Like you say, nigger and joke it's wrong, uncle, you
Speaker 1: shouldn't do this, and then the whole family's like, well,
Speaker 1: why did you have to say something? You ruined the day.
Speaker 1: But they're simply the one to say, you know, morally,
Speaker 1: that's just you know, it's it's we shouldn't be doing
Speaker 1: this funck shit or you know what I'm saying, and
Speaker 1: that verse you could. But my determination, or a lot
Speaker 1: of times my balance in this group is to personalize
Speaker 1: it so that you can. So I'm also talking to
Speaker 1: white people when I'm telling them, you're usually freest from
Speaker 1: this age, from this preschool age. It is usual when
Speaker 1: you're free, and then you're programmed to view poor people
Speaker 1: in this way. Your father and mom did this because
Speaker 1: they worked their ass off. It had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with the fact that your grandparents left them houses which
Speaker 1: they could sell start to build wealth, while the black
Speaker 1: kid in your class grandparents never owned homes because of redlining,
Speaker 1: or homes are underappreciated purposely by developers so they could
Speaker 1: buy them twenty years later and put stadiums there. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. So you, in your mind of contexts,
Speaker 1: has always been fair. You're robbed of an opportunity to
Speaker 1: see the Confederacy per se as a treason, this act
Speaker 1: done to break up a country, because it's always taught
Speaker 1: to you as the war of Northern aggression and not
Speaker 1: the war of a failed secession, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So they have this luxury. But then I literally pulled
Speaker 1: them and tell them you have become so apathetic. Television
Speaker 1: is feeding you the narrative of Everything's okay. It's them
Speaker 1: that you've become so apathetic. You literally watched for eight
Speaker 1: minutes and forty six sepons as I die, That's what.
Speaker 1: And it's replaced your empathy with the apathe And now
Speaker 1: what I'm telling you is just like Altian. It's interesting
Speaker 1: because Al asked me about the Chompskin of Bukowski thing
Speaker 1: because they're not in the same value, and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course I read both. One gives a fuck, seize
Speaker 1: it for what it is as an anarchist and attempts
Speaker 1: to wake you up. The other seize it for what
Speaker 1: it is, chooses to indulge in nothingness, beautiful writing, women,
Speaker 1: and alcohol. I am both those human beings and one
Speaker 1: person rapping, and I think Al got it once. I
Speaker 1: was like yeah, of course. But because I wasn't coming
Speaker 1: from the militaristic Chomsky. I wasn't coming from the fuck
Speaker 1: at all. I'm ignored all. I was coming from a
Speaker 1: place of I understand saying vote. I get it, you know,
Speaker 1: I get why one of the Jews records so our
Speaker 1: seventy five percent, I'm wrapping my ass off punching there's
Speaker 1: twenty five percent of I have to show you this raw,
Speaker 1: beautiful humanity. So I had to give them that. So
Speaker 1: no matter where in the spectrum they were on whiteness,
Speaker 1: whether they was a raving lunatic cousin at the end
Speaker 1: of the table or Uncle Bob said, everyone is covered
Speaker 1: in saying I get it. But besides me getting it,
Speaker 1: I have to help you understand that did Gregor got
Speaker 1: this shit for fifty years before me? And I was
Speaker 1: blessed the last three years. This is where I personalized it,
Speaker 1: because I said earlier, I ended up in wickedly so
Speaker 1: and that's scared the shit out of me. Popping up
Speaker 1: in Hillary's playing email scared the fucking shit out of me.
Speaker 1: And it was right around the time when my wife
Speaker 1: really did tell me after her friends were like, you know, dude,
Speaker 1: like he's like mathmixed march. She said, I need a
Speaker 1: husband more than the world needs a martyr. She really
Speaker 1: said those words to me. I may over publishing. We'll
Speaker 1: see if we ever get divorced to make them after everything,
Speaker 1: but I needed to understand the things that he helped
Speaker 1: me understanding his last three years of life, and what
Speaker 1: he really helped me understand more than anything is begond race,
Speaker 1: beyond ethnicity, beyond what we consider class and culturing, all
Speaker 1: these things that are differences us. There is the state
Speaker 1: and there is us. And the state will kill you,
Speaker 1: just like they killed Martin, just like they killed Malcolm,
Speaker 1: just like they were culpable in the murder of Patrice Lament.
Speaker 1: But just like they've raised the price of Assila Shafer's
Speaker 1: bounty under a black president, the state does that. And
Speaker 1: I needed people to understand. Fuck the line that you
Speaker 1: impressed by about that, I can't breathe because they triggered
Speaker 1: you in the moment. After this moment, the state will
Speaker 1: still murder you. They murdered your messiah. They're going to
Speaker 1: murder whoever is poor after they murder us. And until
Speaker 1: you understand that in that moment, then everything just happens
Speaker 1: again again again, and the crazy cousin Rance and his
Speaker 1: black friend is like, thanks for inviting me over. I
Speaker 1: love that. Mike's like I took a whole verse to
Speaker 1: challenge the logic of nationalism and versus versus being, you know,
Speaker 1: following the tenets of of of Christianity, or whereas Mike
Speaker 1: handily dismantled the whole thing in one line and it
Speaker 1: was beautiful because it was like, you know, the song
Speaker 1: needed that too, the song it needed it needed to
Speaker 1: be like and here's a summary in one fucking line
Speaker 1: of why any allegiance, any any any principles that are
Speaker 1: that are allegiance to nationalism or the state are incorrect,
Speaker 1: are absolute? Is an absolute fallacy like and if you
Speaker 1: need any example of that, fundamentally, the very person that you,
Speaker 1: frankly are pretending to help you know whose principles you're
Speaker 1: pretending guide your life, he was murdered by the same
Speaker 1: fucking people that you are now showing blind allegiance to go.
Speaker 1: So where does so? So how is it that you
Speaker 1: managed to find the fucking loophole in your fucking house?
Speaker 1: How did you manage to find the one loophole that
Speaker 1: allowed you to exist in two spaces at one time.
Speaker 1: I believe in Jesus Christ and all of the tenants
Speaker 1: of Jesus Christ, and I'm a Christian and also don't
Speaker 1: challenge the state. That doesn't make any fucking In fact,
Speaker 1: you make Jesus a hood ornament for the state, right,
Speaker 1: And that's that's the scary part. Yeah, it's terrifying. Tell me,
Speaker 1: tell me more about Dick Gregory. Did you how did you?
Speaker 1: How did you do? That? Was my man? What the
Speaker 1: fuck are you talking about? Let me tell you. Tell me.
Speaker 1: I get a call one day, Hey kill them, Mike,
Speaker 1: what's up? Man? I get two ticks. Actually, Dick Gregory's
Speaker 1: in town. Um, I'm a Dick Gregory staying and fan already.
Speaker 1: Because my grandmother, my dad's my paternal grandmother. She would
Speaker 1: let me my maternal grandmother that raised me, you know,
Speaker 1: after her blues face, she went straight to the church
Speaker 1: and it was just Jesus. It was Jesus around the
Speaker 1: clock around our career. So my other grandma's house, I
Speaker 1: got a chance to listen to like Red Fox Records
Speaker 1: and Richard Pryor records, and you know, you start with
Speaker 1: prior because that's the biggest guy in the world when
Speaker 1: you're young. And then so I started going back and
Speaker 1: you go find you know, you find Dick Gregory's records.
Speaker 1: And I was a kid that would read the encyclopedia
Speaker 1: like I was naturally curious, and I wanted to be smart,
Speaker 1: and his stuff was sharp and smart. And then, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know how, I don't I don't know how.
Speaker 1: I was doing the VCR era. My grandpa got like
Speaker 1: some old black and white stuff from him, and Red
Speaker 1: Fox was on some of them. You know. It was
Speaker 1: just like when they put four different comedians on one
Speaker 1: tape and that type stuff. And so I was into it.
Speaker 1: So I went out and I met him at one
Speaker 1: of the shows that he came out here bought a book.
Speaker 1: I met him after that when I went to the show.
Speaker 1: But I got to sit with him and talk with him.
Speaker 1: But before we got the chance to do that, we
Speaker 1: had to get on the phone with him, and he
Speaker 1: was me and Ti. We had just met him officially
Speaker 1: on the phone, and we were asking him what methods
Speaker 1: should we take of using our celebrity to help you
Speaker 1: know the world. And we named a bunch of shit
Speaker 1: that had already been done, And at one point t
Speaker 1: I says March, and he curses us the fuck out
Speaker 1: for like forty five minutes March on March for nigga,
Speaker 1: They're just gonna tell you you're gonna March the seven
Speaker 1: o'clock and if you ask out that seven fire, the
Speaker 1: gonna come fuck you up. And I'm just like, what
Speaker 1: the fuck Like he's cursing us out. Tip After about
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes from the caves up could Tip calls me
Speaker 1: after the rant like, man, my fall dropped, like you're
Speaker 1: a goddamn live You're falling fucking dropped. But in the
Speaker 1: curse out, it was such love and a want for
Speaker 1: us to It was again I'm raised my grandparents. It
Speaker 1: was no different than my grandfather again, frustrated with me,
Speaker 1: trying to show me how to believe breaks, but I
Speaker 1: understood how much here and then I just wanted to
Speaker 1: be around him. So whenever he come through, I'd invite
Speaker 1: the other homies out, we're gonna watch him, and I
Speaker 1: got a chance to start talking to him. So it
Speaker 1: wasn't an all the time constant relationship, but it was
Speaker 1: he always talked good about me. I found out after
Speaker 1: he died in other rooms. I was the only rappers name.
Speaker 1: He even remembered other people. He would say that, boy,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like that guy that I met,
Speaker 1: you know. But he literally would say that he talked
Speaker 1: about me to people like Kathy Hughes, the most powerful
Speaker 1: black woman in radio. And I found all this out
Speaker 1: that he did. But the conversations we had would be hours.
Speaker 1: It'd be after his show at eleven twelve, and we
Speaker 1: got him to four or five in the fucking morning.
Speaker 1: My wife said to me about a few hours ago,
Speaker 1: let's go look at a tree. And I'm like absolutely,
Speaker 1: because we had a tough day to day. We were
Speaker 1: out doing business and we were sniping at each other.
Speaker 1: And I asked him in front of her one night, hey,
Speaker 1: what did you do. You've been married all these years
Speaker 1: with your wife, what do you do when y'all arguing?
Speaker 1: He said, just whole hands and look at a tree.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to tell all married people, if you
Speaker 1: put your fucking ego aside for ten minutes and walk
Speaker 1: the fuck outside, stand in the grass and look at
Speaker 1: a fucking tree, something happens, or it's just fucking open.
Speaker 1: Just go ahead. Something happens. And that's real. So I
Speaker 1: still live by the things some of the things that
Speaker 1: he's taught, you know what I'm saying. So I knowing
Speaker 1: him was one of the great honors of my life
Speaker 1: because very few people get and I'm gonna tell you this.
Speaker 1: I grew up knowing Reverend James Orange. I grew up
Speaker 1: who was a direct assistant to Doctor King and organized.
Speaker 1: I grew up knowing Joseph Lowry. I grew up knowing
Speaker 1: great people from my culture. But the beautiful thing about
Speaker 1: Dick Gregory was he really became my friend and mentor
Speaker 1: and imparted things on me that will that will give
Speaker 1: me a wisdom in life that are much much richer
Speaker 1: than had I not known him. Beautiful, and I want
Speaker 1: to thank his family for sharing him with the world
Speaker 1: because I cannot understand until died, how audulous that must be. Beautiful.
Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing about Dick Gregory. I've always been
Speaker 1: a fan, so it's nice to hear. And I don't
Speaker 1: know anyone who ever met him, so it's it's beautiful
Speaker 1: to hear. Tell me where the hook came from in
Speaker 1: the ground below. Love never meant so much to me.
Speaker 1: It went through so many different it went through so
Speaker 1: many different changes. Man, is it a sample? No? No, No,
Speaker 1: that's Mike singing. Really, yeah, I had no idea. That's
Speaker 1: the greatest comblement I've ever gotten. I really didn't know.
Speaker 1: I had no idea. I assumed it was a sample,
Speaker 1: but I didn't know it was something that I had written,
Speaker 1: that I had wrapped, and then I sent to Mike,
Speaker 1: and then Mike went to the studio and he sang
Speaker 1: it because he was inspired to sing it. And then
Speaker 1: we ended up getting on a phone and being like,
Speaker 1: all right, let's combine. It's just it was just it
Speaker 1: was the last song that we did, and we just
Speaker 1: ended up sort of doing a hybrid. I kind of
Speaker 1: sent it back and forth him a few times, and yeah,
Speaker 1: but Mike, Mike had done the whole I took what
Speaker 1: I had done. I had wrapped the whole thing. Mike
Speaker 1: took okay, and he sang the whole thing, and you know,
Speaker 1: we had to meet in the middle. Basically, we had
Speaker 1: to meet in the middle. Yeah. Cool. But I love
Speaker 1: the way it came out too. I love the way
Speaker 1: it came out. I think it sounds awesome, you know.
Speaker 1: And how did the singing sections in pulling the pin
Speaker 1: get written. I wrote those they're beautiful, thank you, and
Speaker 1: again sort of similar, I wrote it and it was
Speaker 1: written to be wrapped, and then me and Mike both
Speaker 1: for trying to kind of see if we could sing it,
Speaker 1: and then wasn't It wasn't working. And then you know,
Speaker 1: Mike tells the story and fifty percent of the time
Speaker 1: I smile, and fifty percent of the time I want
Speaker 1: to punch him in the face because I remember what
Speaker 1: it felt like. But all of the time I'm happy
Speaker 1: that it happened this way. Is that basically Mike more
Speaker 1: so than anything that I've ever seen him dig in on.
Speaker 1: And Mike was like, we need to get like a
Speaker 1: soul singer, like a soul voice to do this. And
Speaker 1: it was long, you know how long we were working
Speaker 1: on recommend and it was and it was it was
Speaker 1: laid in the game, and I was I was tired,
Speaker 1: and I and I was like, man, I didn't and
Speaker 1: so we sent it to a couple of different singers
Speaker 1: and Mike was like, I don't like and I was
Speaker 1: annoyed because I was like, motherfucker, because you know, part
Speaker 1: of me was just like I'm tired, I'm just tired.
Speaker 1: But I love him for it because he insisted. He
Speaker 1: insisted because he felt something in it. And that was
Speaker 1: a big honor for me, because when you write something,
Speaker 1: you want your partner to feel it right it's and
Speaker 1: he felt it, and he was he was telling me
Speaker 1: that in his way that he felt well, I was
Speaker 1: what I was saying, But he was also saying, it's
Speaker 1: because I feel it that we can't say it. We
Speaker 1: couldn't do it. It was that shit wouldn't have been right,
Speaker 1: Like what what a whipping post was saying? Pop versus
Speaker 1: by two wail a wailing Southern boy. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. I'm like, what is what is? What is respect?
Speaker 1: A reathing? I've seen? So I just I knew a
Speaker 1: head to be sold. So and then will you know
Speaker 1: one of the manager says, you know, maybe what bro
Speaker 1: what about? Maybe it is like fucking light bulbs go
Speaker 1: off at the potential. And I can remember because I
Speaker 1: had developed a relationship with her a few years ago,
Speaker 1: but we were supposed to work. We didn't work. But
Speaker 1: like an auntie nephew relationship, like she really is one
Speaker 1: of the most beautiful, radiating souls, even to just to
Speaker 1: talk to over the phone, envy meeting people, but I
Speaker 1: envy l for getting a hugger, you know. But when
Speaker 1: when it came back that she consider it and then
Speaker 1: did she do it, it was it was just like
Speaker 1: like like a being like I could like, man, it happened.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it's d it was ordained, man, because
Speaker 1: like like this shit, like no one else that I
Speaker 1: know of, alive now and active in music now, who
Speaker 1: is eighty years old, who could connect a lifetime of
Speaker 1: struggle and beauty and soul. We're really young compared to her, Like,
Speaker 1: we're of a totally different generation. And even though we're sophisticated,
Speaker 1: I believe in our understanding of certain things, there's something
Speaker 1: that can not that we were not capable of expressing
Speaker 1: through our vocals. The most beautiful thing about this story
Speaker 1: of the collaboration is that it's again a great example
Speaker 1: of collaboration. And I'm not even talking about the singing part.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about Mike hearing something of yours and caring
Speaker 1: more about it than you do and insisting away yeah,
Speaker 1: and insisting that it be. And that's what makes a
Speaker 1: great partnership, in that you each make each other better,
Speaker 1: even when the other guys ready to give up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you push each other to Rick and Rick, I'm not
Speaker 1: usually ready to give up, man, But I have been
Speaker 1: working on this record. No, no, no, it's beautiful. It's
Speaker 1: a beautiful story. It's a beautiful story. And you know
Speaker 1: I knew that too. That it's not like I thought, like,
Speaker 1: it's like I understood it even as it was happening.
Speaker 1: I was just tired, but I knew, but I understood
Speaker 1: it enough to be like, okay, let's keep You were
Speaker 1: just done, you were just done. Like look, yo, the
Speaker 1: truth of the matter is is that the labor of
Speaker 1: love that I put into these records, my job on
Speaker 1: these records, it takes a long time. Like what I
Speaker 1: have to do on these records takes a long time
Speaker 1: and a lot of hours, and and you know, it's
Speaker 1: just it's just it's what I asked for. It's what
Speaker 1: I wanted. I wanted to be the guy who makes
Speaker 1: the music and who crafts the album. And I'm good
Speaker 1: at it. But it's also it's time. It can be
Speaker 1: tiring after a while, and and Mike had to pick
Speaker 1: up that energy. Man, he had to be the time
Speaker 1: to say you're right. He cared about it in that moment,
Speaker 1: cared more about what I said than I did. I
Speaker 1: was ready to throw in the towel and that. But
Speaker 1: that energy is I feel like when when I connected
Speaker 1: to it, when I hear it, it's that, it's that collaborate,
Speaker 1: It's the energy of all everyone involved working together to
Speaker 1: get to this better place. It's remarkable and beautiful. It's beautiful,
Speaker 1: feel exactly. I feel very I feel very very lucky
Speaker 1: that it happened that way, and I feel very honored
Speaker 1: that I um, Mike had, Mike had met her before,
Speaker 1: I had never met her. And then the day, the
Speaker 1: day after she um, she said she would do it,
Speaker 1: I was on a plane in Chicago. I was, I was.
Speaker 1: I was there the next day. And being a part
Speaker 1: of Run the Jewels has led to some of the
Speaker 1: most beautiful experience like experiences as a musician and a
Speaker 1: person that I've ever had, Like um being able to
Speaker 1: be in the room and to be and to be
Speaker 1: working with someone who has that, you know, that caliber
Speaker 1: spirit and something that neither me nor Mike could ever
Speaker 1: um could not yet, not yet in our lives could
Speaker 1: we bring the amount of pain and history and love
Speaker 1: and anguish to that record and she has it, and
Speaker 1: it's so inspiring because it's like, Wow, this is the
Speaker 1: point of keeping making art, Like this is the point
Speaker 1: of this is why you don't ever stop. You have
Speaker 1: to keep going and keep because there's something that you're
Speaker 1: going to be able to pull off at eighty years
Speaker 1: old that you were incapable of pulling off at fifty,
Speaker 1: you know, And and it's inspiring to me. It's like, man,
Speaker 1: I'm going I'm just going to keep going because I
Speaker 1: think that I've seen it doesn't die, it just it
Speaker 1: changes and it becomes more powerful. And she connected us
Speaker 1: to generations of protests and heart and love that that
Speaker 1: you know, we're very lucky to be connected to in
Speaker 1: any way beautiful. And earlier, Mike, you said that, um,
Speaker 1: you needed to do at least four albums for it
Speaker 1: to be like a real for it to be a
Speaker 1: real project. And I feel like, yeah, could be a
Speaker 1: real buy now with this fourth album, you guys are
Speaker 1: just getting started. It feels like just the beginning really
Speaker 1: does to me too. That's what That's what Mike keeps
Speaker 1: saying too. I just I just take it one record
Speaker 1: at a time because because it's just been It's just
Speaker 1: been a friendship, you know what I mean for me,
Speaker 1: because you know, for me, I don't like to think
Speaker 1: of it in any terms except are we making a
Speaker 1: new song? Are we making a new jam? You know,
Speaker 1: because all of these things just start with songs with
Speaker 1: me and Mike. And the one thing that's kept me
Speaker 1: coming back that is, like all of this stuff that
Speaker 1: was is hard about Run the Jewels and all the
Speaker 1: stuff that gets complicated with Run the Jewels, there is
Speaker 1: another aspect to it two, which is that the complication
Speaker 1: is never about music to complicate. Like the music and
Speaker 1: the and the and the spirit and the energy that
Speaker 1: we have when we're in our zone. It's always been surprising,
Speaker 1: it's always been exciting, it's always been invigorating. It's always
Speaker 1: been something I couldn't predict. And I'm always seeking out
Speaker 1: that and and but at the same time, I always
Speaker 1: like to think from the very beginning, I always kind
Speaker 1: of like to think the more your your union and
Speaker 1: your partnership with someone is more powerful if that person
Speaker 1: knows that the second that they don't want to be
Speaker 1: in this, the second that this doesn't feel right to them,
Speaker 1: that it's all good. I still love you. You don't
Speaker 1: have to do this with me if it doesn't feel right.
Speaker 1: And of course we know that we're not walking away
Speaker 1: from each other. But I'm just saying that spirit has
Speaker 1: always been there with us, Like, yo, look, this is
Speaker 1: a choice. You're choosing to be in the room with me.
Speaker 1: Every time you don't, you don't have to. And and
Speaker 1: because we're both choosing to be in the room with
Speaker 1: each other every time, it keeps, It keeps the love there,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, It keeps. It's like we're
Speaker 1: walking in with our eyes open. And so Mike's often like,
Speaker 1: will say that, And of course in the back of
Speaker 1: my head, I'm like, yeah, no doubt. But I'm a
Speaker 1: little superstitious. I don't like to say shit like that.
Speaker 1: I don't like to say shit like that out loud.
Speaker 1: I like to just let it happen. So thank you both,
Speaker 1: and I look forward to seeing you sooner than later. Peace.
Speaker 1: Thanks to LP and Killing Mike for taking the time
Speaker 1: to break down their new album. You can hear Run
Speaker 1: the Jewels four, along with our other favorite songs from them,
Speaker 1: by heading to Broken Record podcast dot com. We sure
Speaker 1: to check out our YouTube channel to catch up on
Speaker 1: past episodes and bonus interview footage, including an extending cut
Speaker 1: of today's episode. You can subscribe at YouTube dot com
Speaker 1: slash broken Record podcast. Broken Record is produced with help
Speaker 1: from Jason Gambrel me LaBelle Leah Rose, Eric Sandler, and
Speaker 1: Martin Gonzalez for Pushman Ministries. Art musics by Kenny Beats.
Speaker 1: I'm Justin Richmond bass