Speaker 1: Welcome to Inside the Studio presented by I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: I'm your host Joe Levy. So this time out I
Speaker 1: got to talk with LP and Killer Mike of Run
Speaker 1: the Jewels, who have made one of the hardest, craziest,
Speaker 1: and most politically charged hip hop albums of the year,
Speaker 1: although actually you could pretty much say that for any
Speaker 1: year in which Run the Jewels puts out an album,
Speaker 1: but still, the early June release of this one, which
Speaker 1: is called Run the Jewels four, felt a little deeper,
Speaker 1: coming as it did just weeks into the protest marches
Speaker 1: that spread around the country and around the world after
Speaker 1: the killing of George Floyd by the police in Minneapolis.
Speaker 1: Run the Jewels four has been rightly hailed as an
Speaker 1: album that catches the mood of that moment. In fact,
Speaker 1: Killer Mike told me that he's heard from protest sster's
Speaker 1: around the country who have taken up one song from
Speaker 1: the album, it's called Walking in the Snow, as something
Speaker 1: of an anthem on their marches. And in that track,
Speaker 1: Mike talks at one point about the TV news showing
Speaker 1: a man like him, that is, a black man choked
Speaker 1: out by the police, while whispering the words I can't breathe,
Speaker 1: which of course were the exact words used by both
Speaker 1: George Floyd Dismay and Eric Garner six years before that.
Speaker 1: So the sad fact is that Walking in the Snow
Speaker 1: is a song that both describes a system that's been
Speaker 1: broken and deadly for a very long time and a
Speaker 1: song that feels like it was written ten minutes ago
Speaker 1: in reaction to what's happening right now. As Killer Mike
Speaker 1: and LP told me, Run the Jewels four was actually
Speaker 1: recorded last year. The original plan before the pandemic was
Speaker 1: to release the album in the spring and for Run
Speaker 1: the Jewels to go out on road with Rage against
Speaker 1: the Machine, who were slated for a reunion gig at Coachella. Now.
Speaker 1: LP comes out of the nineties underground hip hop scene
Speaker 1: in New York. He was in the trio company Flow,
Speaker 1: and he was also a co founder of the crucial
Speaker 1: indie labeled Deaf Jucks. Killer Mike is from Atlanta. He
Speaker 1: earned his nickname as a battle rapper, and he made
Speaker 1: his recorded debut in two thousand on a cut from
Speaker 1: the outcast classic Stanconia. And the two of them began
Speaker 1: working together about a decade ago when LP was slated
Speaker 1: to produce a couple of tracks on a Killer Mike
Speaker 1: solo album called Rap Music. Mike heard what LP had
Speaker 1: done and convinced him to produce the entire album, and
Speaker 1: part of what their partnership and Run the Jewels shows
Speaker 1: is how the Internet is just about a race, any
Speaker 1: space in between whatever we call alternative and mainstream hip hop.
Speaker 1: I mean, we live in an age when music can
Speaker 1: come from anyone, any where, with or without a label,
Speaker 1: and it can sound like anything. A Round the Jewels
Speaker 1: track might be futuristic, or it might be an old
Speaker 1: school throwback. It might start out with some New York
Speaker 1: experimental rock and then shift into a Southern syrup e
Speaker 1: style and Run the Jewels for The guests include two
Speaker 1: Chains and Farrell on the one hand, and Josh Hammy
Speaker 1: from Queens of the Stone Age and Zach de Larroca
Speaker 1: from Rage Against the Machine on the other. I mean
Speaker 1: this is music that does whatever it wants in the
Speaker 1: same way. Their music doesn't sound like just one thing.
Speaker 1: Their songs don't stay in just one place. These guys
Speaker 1: can move rapid fire from ship talking to heavy thinking,
Speaker 1: with a lot more in between. There's a fair amount
Speaker 1: of humor on Run the Jewels four. The album is
Speaker 1: set up as episode four of a ridiculous fictional television
Speaker 1: show cross between I Don't Know the A Team and
Speaker 1: Dukes of Has Heard. Maybe it's that cop show that
Speaker 1: the Beastie Boys were starring in in the Sabotage video.
Speaker 1: Whatever it is, it's about two anti heroes on the
Speaker 1: run fighting against crooked cops, and it's called Yankee and
Speaker 1: the Brave, which is a reference to the Yankees and
Speaker 1: Atlanta Braves baseball caps that LP and Killer Mike ware.
Speaker 1: But the final track on the album is called a
Speaker 1: Few Words from the Firing Squad, and it goes somewhere
Speaker 1: more emotional than these guys have gone before. LP told
Speaker 1: me about how originally he planned to put drums on
Speaker 1: this track. What you're hearing is almost what they started with,
Speaker 1: and once he and Killer Mike began putting their verses
Speaker 1: down and talking about the women in their lives and
Speaker 1: their core values, he decided against tinkering with it. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to take away from anything Mike was saying.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to take away from anything I was
Speaker 1: saying by overproducing it. It needed to be something that
Speaker 1: felt really clear and felt and felt really powerful because
Speaker 1: I think that um it demanded it, you know what
Speaker 1: we were saying, as Jamie and Mike needed to be
Speaker 1: front and center and needed to be heard. So LP
Speaker 1: and Killer Mike talked in depth about that song, and
Speaker 1: they also talked about how they've tried to keep their
Speaker 1: businesses Run the Jewels and also the other side businesses
Speaker 1: outside of music that they've started keep these things going
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, and most importantly, about how and why
Speaker 1: they worked together. Here's what else they had to say. Okay,
Speaker 1: when Mike Lfie, welcome to inside the studio. Hey, thanks
Speaker 1: for having us man, although none of us are actually
Speaker 1: inside anything resembling a studio. I'm in my living room,
Speaker 1: l P, you're where are you? I'm just on a
Speaker 1: I'm just on a deck. I'm just on a deck,
Speaker 1: just on a deck. Not actually djaying on this particular deck,
Speaker 1: but no, no, look a literal wood deck. Yeah. Uh?
Speaker 1: And and and Mike, where you at? I'm in my
Speaker 1: gaudy ass dining room and my wife to side with
Speaker 1: African mask on the wall and ship oh nice. Obviously
Speaker 1: Run the Jewels. For episode four of A Yankee and
Speaker 1: the Brave as you put it on. The first track
Speaker 1: has been received this one of the best albums of
Speaker 1: the year so far and most definitely an album that
Speaker 1: helps people, whether they're listening like me on their headphones,
Speaker 1: are out in the street, cope with things right now?
Speaker 1: And how does that feel? It's been amazing. I you know,
Speaker 1: it's connected with people on a level that we, you know,
Speaker 1: are blown away by. You know, but you know, I
Speaker 1: think people love the music. I think people I think
Speaker 1: the music is is giving people energy, and I think
Speaker 1: that people are connecting with the spirit of the things.
Speaker 1: So I'm honored, man, I really am. I think that
Speaker 1: we just make we just made music, and we just
Speaker 1: try and please each other, you know, make sure that
Speaker 1: we feel like we repped you know who we are.
Speaker 1: And you don't know how people are gonna react to it,
Speaker 1: but we felt like this was a special record. So
Speaker 1: to to to have people react like that is amazing.
Speaker 1: Feels good. Um awesome hip hop ship Like I'm loved that.
Speaker 1: It took times and it resonates. I'm loving it. People
Speaker 1: are wrapping out words. I'm missing y'all. I look forward
Speaker 1: to get out on the road next year. But just
Speaker 1: the perfect phrases it just feels day, I'm good. And
Speaker 1: of course a lot of people are receiving it as
Speaker 1: very much an album at the moment, and I have
Speaker 1: to say, the tracks like Pulling the Pin do feel
Speaker 1: like they could have been written like ten minutes ago.
Speaker 1: But I've read that the album was originally scheduled for
Speaker 1: release in April, and it is. After all, it was
Speaker 1: to Run the Jewels album. You could go back to
Speaker 1: Thieves from Run the Jewels three, and you can hear
Speaker 1: music that fits this moment. You go back to earlier,
Speaker 1: you can back you know, you go back to close
Speaker 1: your eyes, you can go back to you know, I
Speaker 1: think that we the truth is is that people are
Speaker 1: tuning into that frequency right now, and and and but
Speaker 1: the truth but like you said, I mean, this album
Speaker 1: was gonna drop in April, and we made it in
Speaker 1: two thousand nineteen, so you know, this is where this
Speaker 1: is where we were at in our heads in terms
Speaker 1: of our art and what we were looking at the
Speaker 1: things that we were tackling. And so you know, um,
Speaker 1: you kind of wish that someday those types of some
Speaker 1: of the ideas that feel really relevant right now will
Speaker 1: never feel relevant again. You know. That's that's the hope,
Speaker 1: you know, and to me and Mike can do that,
Speaker 1: do our version of the kid and play kickstep or
Speaker 1: whatever it is that we got to come up with too,
Speaker 1: like you know, make happy music basically, um, those those
Speaker 1: things are connecting with people. And more than anything, we
Speaker 1: wanted to give people something that just had life to
Speaker 1: it and energy to it and a little bit of
Speaker 1: um that. We didn't want something that was that felt
Speaker 1: like it was despair. We want something that felt like
Speaker 1: it was resilience, something that felt like it you know,
Speaker 1: it could translate like puff your chest out a little
Speaker 1: bit like yeah, you know, you know, we see what,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the things that are going on.
Speaker 1: And yet I don't think you walk away from this
Speaker 1: record feeling defeated. I think that you walk away from
Speaker 1: this record feeling energy. I hope, you know. No. I
Speaker 1: mean I would say a lot of it is fight music,
Speaker 1: right yeah, yeah, for sure, thinking man's fight music or
Speaker 1: thinking people's fight music as it were, for sure. But
Speaker 1: one thing that that really resonates. I mean, Mike, you've
Speaker 1: talked about this, You've talked about hearing from people who
Speaker 1: are out protesting that they've taken up that track walking
Speaker 1: in the snow as they march. Yeah, and that's such
Speaker 1: a strong record musically and lyrically. But but it is
Speaker 1: it's a fight song on some level, right it is,
Speaker 1: and and people have to understand that fight is the
Speaker 1: internal and external fight. It is the cental, spiritual and
Speaker 1: physical fight. You know, it is the warfare philosophy and
Speaker 1: ideology is good for people. It is absolutely a fight
Speaker 1: song and it gets you motivated. It is um just
Speaker 1: really moves. And dare I say, is krump because that's
Speaker 1: what boo and that Memphis accent and energy gaze to
Speaker 1: what the feeling was. She brought that out and that
Speaker 1: you know. So, but the world, Doug gets so cold.
Speaker 1: You're walking in the snow, and people out there have
Speaker 1: called me. The homies have called me from Tampa and
Speaker 1: Sat Pete. The homies called me from New York. Homies
Speaker 1: called me from l A at different times where that
Speaker 1: record was playing as people were protesting. So I'm very
Speaker 1: proud just made something that fits the mood of the
Speaker 1: moment and motivates people and pushes the movement forward past
Speaker 1: the moment. But like you said, it is you nailed
Speaker 1: it when you said, it's it's it's it's thinking man's
Speaker 1: fight music. Because really the fight that we are, the
Speaker 1: way that we're fighting on that song, it's been particular
Speaker 1: as we're fighting intellectually against some of the concepts and
Speaker 1: some of the ideas that people are accepting. You know. Um,
Speaker 1: I think that there's an there's there's some obvious things
Speaker 1: that resonate really quickly with people, like for instance, you know,
Speaker 1: the clear thing about Mike who was referencing um, Eric
Speaker 1: Garner's death, and obviously that resonated really quickly and very
Speaker 1: clearly with the moment of just very very publicly had
Speaker 1: you know, everybody experiencing those words being uttered again and
Speaker 1: the death of another black man in America. But what
Speaker 1: me and Mike are doing through the subtext of that
Speaker 1: whole song is trying to challenge and really debate some
Speaker 1: of the some of the mind frame and some of
Speaker 1: the intellectual positions that people are taking that are allowing
Speaker 1: this stuff to happen, that are allowing our ideals to
Speaker 1: be compromised. Um. And that's what I think is there
Speaker 1: in the song underneath it all. When when it finally
Speaker 1: you know, once that shock of of there being something
Speaker 1: that sounds you know, really clearly of the moment. I
Speaker 1: think that there's something deeper there as well, you know,
Speaker 1: Mike saying, you know, never forget that you know about
Speaker 1: state Jesus was going by to stay and me challenging
Speaker 1: the idea of being. You know, if you're a Christian
Speaker 1: and yet you somehow find yourself politically on the side
Speaker 1: of people who are caging children, then perhaps you're not
Speaker 1: as Christian as you purport to be to yourself and
Speaker 1: to others, you know, and you know, so it is
Speaker 1: a fight, but I think it's a fight for the
Speaker 1: hearts and my end of all of us. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not a record that says go out and fight.
Speaker 1: It's physically, although that's a result um that can happen
Speaker 1: in culture and that you know sometimes has to happen.
Speaker 1: But really that record is a record of us saying, like, hey,
Speaker 1: let's take this to task. Let's fight against these ideas.
Speaker 1: If you really want to back up your you know,
Speaker 1: if you really want to back up your position, you know,
Speaker 1: here's here's our argument. You know, you know, there are
Speaker 1: some production choices on this track. We're talking about walking
Speaker 1: in the snow that that really hit me the more
Speaker 1: I listened to it, and one in particular, you take
Speaker 1: that that channing noise, that sort of posse and effect
Speaker 1: yo yo noise out from the back, and it becomes
Speaker 1: a whole different track, right because you you lose that
Speaker 1: sense of community, but you also lose a little bit
Speaker 1: of that fighting spirit that we're talking about, right if
Speaker 1: you were to if you were to take it out,
Speaker 1: if you were to take it out. So tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit about how this track comes together. Like,
Speaker 1: let's just talk about the recording, the concept, how does
Speaker 1: this all mesh? Which comes first? How's it happen? This track,
Speaker 1: more than maybe any on the album, evolved like really
Speaker 1: far from what it originally was. Elements of what it
Speaker 1: originally was made it into the track, But originally it
Speaker 1: was just one beat. It was a little bit more
Speaker 1: just straightforward all the way through. It was kind of
Speaker 1: just this soulful, funky beat. We both laid down our
Speaker 1: our our main verses over that originally, and um, I
Speaker 1: just couldn't fight the feeling that this needed more, more
Speaker 1: of a dynamic thing to happen. It felt like it
Speaker 1: was a journey and that the music originally that we
Speaker 1: had wasn't complete. It didn't feel like the music was
Speaker 1: bringing you on that journey as much. You know. UM,
Speaker 1: we created all these different sections and and and many
Speaker 1: of them changed and radically, you know, like originally under
Speaker 1: my under My Verse there was another totally different beat
Speaker 1: that I had tacked on and then you know, so
Speaker 1: it was just it was kind of a really epic
Speaker 1: and long creation of this thing and going back and
Speaker 1: forth and you know, sending it to Mike and being like,
Speaker 1: what do you think of this? You know, we're kind
Speaker 1: of just playing off of each other and vibing off
Speaker 1: of of of how it felt, and ultimately sort of
Speaker 1: the original hook was just me sped up saying that,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, this isn't right, Like it
Speaker 1: kind of sounded like a shitty version of Gangster Boob,
Speaker 1: you know, and we were like, wait, we know the
Speaker 1: real Gangster Boo. We should get her on. UM. As
Speaker 1: a producer and as a technician, this was maybe the
Speaker 1: most intricate thing that we put together for the record.
Speaker 1: It was really ultimately about five different pieces of music
Speaker 1: that got melded into one piece of music. And I
Speaker 1: think that when you when you hear it and you
Speaker 1: hear the changes, and you hear how things pull over
Speaker 1: and drag over into other sections, but every time you
Speaker 1: get to another section, it's sort of metamorphosizes. And that
Speaker 1: was intentional. We wanted We wanted to follow how the
Speaker 1: conversation was changing as well throughout the song and highlight
Speaker 1: the fact that it was the same conversation with different
Speaker 1: perspectives and that so each moment had to have its
Speaker 1: own gravitas, like what Mike said, what he said, it
Speaker 1: had to have elements of that original soul beat that
Speaker 1: we had kind of created for him when that heat
Speaker 1: that inspired him. So it was it was tricky, but
Speaker 1: but I'm really proud of the way it all came together. Mike.
Speaker 1: This is the track where you you bust out that line.
Speaker 1: We'd be the heroes. The breakers have changed the busters
Speaker 1: of locks and and maybe this is just nerd ing
Speaker 1: out too much, but I heard that like a little
Speaker 1: recasting of the famous run the Jewels hand sign. But
Speaker 1: the chain being snatched away maybe isn't one you wear
Speaker 1: around your neck. Maybe it's one that's holding you down mentally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a retard to the thinking of down. You know
Speaker 1: what I mean. You can't tain't pick up your crown
Speaker 1: holding when holding you down. Before you ever match bas
Speaker 1: yourself from many things physical, you gotta free your mind
Speaker 1: and heart of the need to be approved of by
Speaker 1: all the guards and the eagle. You know I mean,
Speaker 1: so you know we are We are the heroes to
Speaker 1: break and telling the bust of the lock. That's because
Speaker 1: our friendship, our musical camaraderie, out music all challenges convention
Speaker 1: every step of the way. So it's not like I'm
Speaker 1: want to come to your hometown and necessarily open up
Speaker 1: the cage it or you, but hopefully what what what
Speaker 1: we do lyrically, besides just be badass and dope as fuck,
Speaker 1: it's gets you to take off some of the limits
Speaker 1: you were told and nobody even knows why. So absolutely
Speaker 1: I think our music does that for people, because not
Speaker 1: because I'm arrogant enough to think that I have some
Speaker 1: magical superpower, because people have literally told us, like, your
Speaker 1: music makes me feel this way, And I've been like,
Speaker 1: when I start seeing Run of Julis to get grown up.
Speaker 1: When people were sucking kayak in a hundred miles on
Speaker 1: the river and surviving and climbing mountains and ship and
Speaker 1: doing spark races. First of all, I was like, yo,
Speaker 1: that I don't want to do none of that ship.
Speaker 1: Our music liberates the soul and and good you know,
Speaker 1: good gospel music does that, you know anything music you feel?
Speaker 1: And I think that there's a there's a celebratory feel
Speaker 1: to this record, not like we've bothered, we pop the champagne,
Speaker 1: we've made it, but a celebration a lot because we
Speaker 1: ain't did it yet. Baby, So we're gonna keep all
Speaker 1: living facts. And I think that you cast yourself, you know,
Speaker 1: you're you're we're in this, in this world and Jamie
Speaker 1: and Mike's world. You were authoring our own legend within
Speaker 1: the creativity that we have where we're we're right, we're
Speaker 1: writing our graphic novel, we're writing our film, we're writing
Speaker 1: our we're creating ourselves as as the image of of
Speaker 1: who we want to be, our avatars that exist within
Speaker 1: this plane. And we chose heroes. Now the heroes are
Speaker 1: not um perfect. Well, I mean, the whole album is
Speaker 1: set up, is it's practiced by this idea of you
Speaker 1: Yankee from New York, brave Atlanta. You're on the run
Speaker 1: from cricket cops to to funk ups, petty petty criminal
Speaker 1: funk ups who are on the fucking run, and but
Speaker 1: who are at the end of the day standing up
Speaker 1: to something and standing in the moment. They're morals, They're
Speaker 1: just they believe the strippers should have a union. They
Speaker 1: support that. That's a real thing, and I really support
Speaker 1: and you do actually say that on the record. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it may take table dances up to ten dollars, but
Speaker 1: I'll bite the bullet. You know, you're you're you're a
Speaker 1: good man. Wait where are you getting for ten dollars?
Speaker 1: Where I won't go? He's he's in Atlanta, Dude, He's
Speaker 1: an Atlanta He thinks he thinks that's expensive. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: he doesn't understand. Mike doesn't understand that. It's usually taunt.
Speaker 1: Never mind, we won't get into this too much. But
Speaker 1: but you know, I think that I think that one
Speaker 1: of the things that me and Mike that I love
Speaker 1: about these that that run the Jewels is that they're
Speaker 1: you know, it's based on our hearts, it's based on
Speaker 1: our soul and our on our perspectives. And it's also constantly, um,
Speaker 1: sort of challenging the idea that goodness is proper, that
Speaker 1: goodness is clean. That goodness is um delivered to you
Speaker 1: in the way that you would hope that it was
Speaker 1: to match up to your sensitive sensibilities. And so being
Speaker 1: an anti hero gives you a lot of room to
Speaker 1: have a lot of fun when you're being creative, you know,
Speaker 1: but also allows you to remain um honorable to the
Speaker 1: things that you think are important. And I think that
Speaker 1: that when we when that's that's what we pull off
Speaker 1: when we do these records, and it's why we're allowed
Speaker 1: to be funny and stupid when we want to be um.
Speaker 1: And it's also why we never have any issues changing
Speaker 1: that mode and and and be getting serious too. Speaking
Speaker 1: of the funny stupid anti hero, I think one of
Speaker 1: my favorite moments on this album is LP, when you
Speaker 1: declare yourself a rudeness mcgever on Holy Colama Fuck. But
Speaker 1: but it's also one of my favorite moments because it
Speaker 1: rhymes with criminal Minder, which is a nod to the
Speaker 1: Boogie Down productions classic Criminal Minded. And I thought about
Speaker 1: this album a lot when I was listening to R
Speaker 1: t J four. It came out in the year I
Speaker 1: Ran Contra and I remember at the time care Us
Speaker 1: one and Scott Rock talking about how with a kid
Speaker 1: in the South Bronx so crack, he was a criminal,
Speaker 1: but if the government sold arms to Iran, which was
Speaker 1: illegal at the time, that was just business as usual.
Speaker 1: And that's a that's an idea I hear resonate through
Speaker 1: your work. Karras One and B. D. P are a
Speaker 1: huge influence for me because when I was growing up
Speaker 1: a white kid in Brooklyn, learning about my city in
Speaker 1: another way through hip hop music really you know, but
Speaker 1: also learning about world politics through hip hop music. Now,
Speaker 1: these were these were some of the first people that
Speaker 1: actually had my ear, you know, like Kari's one had
Speaker 1: my fucking ear. So when he talked about Noriega, or
Speaker 1: when he talked about I Ran Contra, or when he
Speaker 1: talked about you know, um, like this is this is
Speaker 1: stuff that actually clicked with me, that actually led me
Speaker 1: towards a world perspective. So yeah, the criminal Minder was
Speaker 1: a straight homage to him, because I look at it
Speaker 1: the same way I look at George Orwell. Um, I
Speaker 1: you know, thought crime, you know, like, yes, I am
Speaker 1: absolutely guilty of thought cry as defined by you know,
Speaker 1: by Orwell, And so I look at them on the
Speaker 1: same level I look at cares one in George orwell
Speaker 1: in terms of the effect that they had on my
Speaker 1: life in the same regard like um and you know,
Speaker 1: and also by the way, that song that whole first
Speaker 1: two verses of me and Mike was a was a
Speaker 1: was a stylistic reference to one of the greatest duels
Speaker 1: of all times, trying the gambler. Yeah to their song
Speaker 1: broken Language, which which which is uh? Which is just
Speaker 1: so cool to think because me and Mike, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm from New York, Mike from Atlanta. But the fact
Speaker 1: that that was I don't have to explain to Mike.
Speaker 1: Mike doesn't have to explain to me when we're referencing
Speaker 1: those styles. That's the other thing I love Run the
Speaker 1: Jewels because me and Mike just no styles and we
Speaker 1: really grew up being influenced by them and listening to them,
Speaker 1: not only the intellectual stuff but also just the straight
Speaker 1: rap shit, you know, the swagger ship. So you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a fun jam to make. That's actually one
Speaker 1: of my favorites on the album. Let's talk about another standout,
Speaker 1: just the choruses look at all these slave masters posing
Speaker 1: on your dollars and and Mike. There's an episode of
Speaker 1: your Netflix series Trigger Warning where you pull out a
Speaker 1: twin dollar bill and you deliver brief history lesson, like
Speaker 1: talking talking about right Andrew Jackson, And yeah, I feel
Speaker 1: like this whole concept might have been kicking around for
Speaker 1: a minute, you know, but the crazy ship is that
Speaker 1: was for all for all wrote up? Is that? Right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: The slave masses all my dollars kind of obviously like
Speaker 1: time as a kid, you learned about slave, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, It's it's right there for you to hear.
Speaker 1: That's no surprise. But I think that the reoccurrence of
Speaker 1: capitalism and slavery and stuff is popped up in my
Speaker 1: music a lot. And it's and that's something I've had
Speaker 1: to contend with, was being a capitalist and a business
Speaker 1: person myself. But I think it's something that Run the
Speaker 1: Jewels touches on in terms of money. But I think
Speaker 1: for real though just came with the perfect thread too, Soul.
Speaker 1: The three verses that we put on there all look
Speaker 1: at capitalism and money in our relationship with it, but
Speaker 1: in different ways. Like I learned business through selling drugs.
Speaker 1: That's how I learned business, you know, when I go
Speaker 1: business religion of philosophy. I already knew how to make
Speaker 1: a dollar growth, you know, from selling drugs. And I've
Speaker 1: had to contend with the fact that for many years
Speaker 1: of my life that that that as a child, I
Speaker 1: made this very adult decision at a time when anybody
Speaker 1: who had any intelligence would have sold trust because it
Speaker 1: was too easy not to do. But I have to
Speaker 1: say to myself, when I'm castigating or or promoting and
Speaker 1: pushing things down, am I a hypocrite? And I've had
Speaker 1: to accept that that there are some things that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: after you've become an adult, you have your own kids
Speaker 1: and ship, you don't want to go to the gas
Speaker 1: stations with fifty little dude selling drusts Africa. But you've
Speaker 1: been you don't saying, so I've had to I've had
Speaker 1: to reconcile those things. And a part of this record
Speaker 1: for me was stylistically doing a distinctly Southern style. But
Speaker 1: at first I didn't like two lines that I had
Speaker 1: in there. It just made it some trap wrap ship
Speaker 1: and I needed to alter those minds to make it
Speaker 1: what it was. A philosophical observation of who I am
Speaker 1: a relation to business. Being a businessman now but that
Speaker 1: exception coming from selling drugs, um that the fact that marijuana,
Speaker 1: although still has black men and women and brown people
Speaker 1: in jail for decades now, now is a legal thing
Speaker 1: that my white homeboys in Colorado and California participating in
Speaker 1: legally and abundantly. So we lost an opportunity to take
Speaker 1: advantage of alcohol sixty years ago because we would cut out.
Speaker 1: Let's not let legislation do that to us again. And
Speaker 1: the fact that a casino owner runs our country, you know,
Speaker 1: it shows us that, yes, in America, you two can
Speaker 1: be anything in president included. But it shows you the
Speaker 1: mentality of the country that we are a criminal country.
Speaker 1: We promote criminal culture, and we whitewash it or legislated
Speaker 1: to make it acceptable. But we are no more kind
Speaker 1: of country of roads and criminals. And if we don't
Speaker 1: understand that in our relation to money, there is no
Speaker 1: road to improvement. Capitalism does prevail in the most vicious
Speaker 1: and evil way. And capitalism works like you participant in
Speaker 1: it or a victim of it. And it is obvious
Speaker 1: at this point by being even a compassionate capitalist, I
Speaker 1: am a participating I mean this is important and capitalism
Speaker 1: certainly comes up on this record comes up on pulling
Speaker 1: the pen as well. And and we can't really talk
Speaker 1: about justice of any kind. We certainly can't talk about
Speaker 1: racial justice if we're not also talking about economic justice. Right, absolutely,
Speaker 1: first and foremost absolutely absolutely. I just left the meeting
Speaker 1: with a bunch of black panthers and a bunch of
Speaker 1: local organizers. And one of the biggest things that was
Speaker 1: talked about and easy the original guys that were from
Speaker 1: the late sixties, early seventies, men and women, and the
Speaker 1: local organizers, men and women, and people from the music industry.
Speaker 1: Um and when the number one thing talked about was
Speaker 1: was economic stability um self alliance injustice in terms of
Speaker 1: from the government and corporations in terms of helping my
Speaker 1: community save Alize. So absolutely, And Mike, you've mentioned your
Speaker 1: business profile you grew in some barbershops I think you
Speaker 1: were also I've read you also have food trucks restaurants.
Speaker 1: Is that right? Yeah? Our own uh uh. We're growing
Speaker 1: a line of barbershops called the Swag Shop. My wife
Speaker 1: and I we currently have three. I'm missed. In the
Speaker 1: next twenty four months is to have ten more, um
Speaker 1: to serve as a prototype to hopefully grow into a
Speaker 1: regional and national chain much like Floyd's or Rooty's. Um
Speaker 1: Tipping I bought a fifty year old restaurant called Bancane
Speaker 1: Sea Food. Were then partnered with the developer Noel Khalil
Speaker 1: out of out of Atlanta, who's a businessman to a
Speaker 1: friend and partner to um to to to roll this
Speaker 1: restaurant out um and we started with food trucks. We're
Speaker 1: about to buy second food trucks so that we have
Speaker 1: two routes running and I breaking mortar. Business should be
Speaker 1: up in the next eighteen months, So you know I
Speaker 1: who definitely I'm a kid from the neighborhood who kind
Speaker 1: of went back and bed, which is supposed to doing
Speaker 1: reinvest in the neighborhoods Now, your governor and Georgia pushed
Speaker 1: for early reopenings. Did you reopen your business? Did not?
Speaker 1: You didn't know, We did not know. They still close.
Speaker 1: Our barbershop just opened UM two weeks ago. The one
Speaker 1: downtown we open and open with strict regulations. Other two
Speaker 1: shops remain closed because we we wanted to see what
Speaker 1: the first dirty days would be like. In our downtown shop,
Speaker 1: we had no infections. Our customers are healthy. Our barbers
Speaker 1: are healthy. So we got about maybe two more weeks
Speaker 1: before we decided we're gonna open without restaurant. Because we
Speaker 1: operate in an open outside food truck park area, we've
Speaker 1: been able to keep our restaurant closed, although we don't
Speaker 1: have a bricking more restaurant, but people sit down. It's
Speaker 1: essentially you come in, you order, you take it in,
Speaker 1: your food, and you take out. So our trucks have
Speaker 1: been able to run if anyone's interested. By the way,
Speaker 1: I also owned businesses. It's not as exciting as all
Speaker 1: that Mike just said, But I got a bar to Delhi.
Speaker 1: That's my story, and is Delhi has the best prescribed
Speaker 1: me in New York. I'm a I'm a cat's customer.
Speaker 1: But let me tell you, Frankles man best prescribed me
Speaker 1: in New York. Y'all don't want y'all don't want to
Speaker 1: play with that. Frankles in Brooklyn, you're are is probably
Speaker 1: not open as your deli been open. The Delhi has
Speaker 1: been open for delivery stuff very carefully. And um, you know,
Speaker 1: like a lot of like a lot of businesses, um
Speaker 1: you know, had had to had to adapt, you know,
Speaker 1: you really, you know, and the bar has been the same.
Speaker 1: We've experimented with doing some drinks to go and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, but it's been very difficult, and the truth
Speaker 1: of the matter is the most important thing has been
Speaker 1: you know, for me being involved in businesses like that.
Speaker 1: The thing that I really drove home to me during
Speaker 1: this whole thing that we're all experiencing right now is
Speaker 1: just how devastated the service community has been. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm very close all my friends are in that community,
Speaker 1: and that's been the hardest part making sure that they're okay,
Speaker 1: and making sure that everybody's like, you know, handled and
Speaker 1: the same thing as a as a as co business
Speaker 1: owners with me and Mike, you know, we have an
Speaker 1: entire crew of people who rely on us, um whose
Speaker 1: whole year was supposed to be you know, basically working
Speaker 1: for us. As we toward you know, you were going
Speaker 1: to go out on the with rage against the machine, correct,
Speaker 1: and we still are. It's scheduled to being you know,
Speaker 1: next summer. But but that and me and micro okay,
Speaker 1: sitting it out and and clenching our teeth. You know,
Speaker 1: while while that money isn't being earned, but people who
Speaker 1: are who work for us, that's really is their their livelihood,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's and it's not something that they
Speaker 1: can just take a year off of and not be
Speaker 1: affected by, you know. So it's been, it's been. It's
Speaker 1: been interesting. I don't know about what you guys did
Speaker 1: with your businesses, whether you went to PPE for paytech
Speaker 1: protection loans. But but a band can't run the Jewels.
Speaker 1: Can't exactly do that, can they? You can to some degree, yes,
Speaker 1: not run the Jewels. Yes you can. You can um
Speaker 1: if you've got a payroll. You know, there are things
Speaker 1: that you can do UM and then and we have
Speaker 1: managed to get some of that UM going for them,
Speaker 1: and we've also relied on the kindness of our fans,
Speaker 1: you know, we've relied on the kindness of our of
Speaker 1: the Jewel runners who have been incredibly supportive. We put
Speaker 1: a T shirt up that fully benefited all of our
Speaker 1: crew members that you know, breaked in a lot of
Speaker 1: money that went directly to them to be able to
Speaker 1: put it, you know, to be able to hold them
Speaker 1: over while they're waiting to be able to you know,
Speaker 1: live earn a living. UM. So we've we've we've got
Speaker 1: a really strong community in that regard and it's been
Speaker 1: very lucky, like people care and and that's that's a
Speaker 1: cool thing. And and and we're definitely gonna honor that
Speaker 1: by giving the you know, these these great guys you
Speaker 1: know their jobs is the second that we can and
Speaker 1: giving a great show. You know. Um, it's one of
Speaker 1: those things that I know Mike is dealing with it
Speaker 1: with his businesses as best as he can. And it's
Speaker 1: just one of those like, you know, things that all
Speaker 1: of us got hit with and now you know, it's
Speaker 1: a curveball. It's like we got we did, we tried
Speaker 1: like three times. We got shot now. But what we
Speaker 1: did is the first month we haven't charged our barber's anything.
Speaker 1: We've managed, um, even in closing, our rents were paid
Speaker 1: by our online sales and things of that nature. And again,
Speaker 1: the food truck that'm running is simply pick up and
Speaker 1: walk away. So in our food truck, soccer die years.
Speaker 1: She was on CNN yesterday with Rook Baldwin for a
Speaker 1: black out Tuesday. Heard Kevin Kohey who runs one United Bank,
Speaker 1: which is a black bank we used, but she was
Speaker 1: on there yesterday. She's an amazing woman, former military woman,
Speaker 1: runs the hell out of our operation. She's as operations manager.
Speaker 1: But she purposely hires people that are on probation or
Speaker 1: have been involved with a sentence and are getting out
Speaker 1: of jail, and we pay them fairly and they get
Speaker 1: an opportunity to get back in the real world at work, UM,
Speaker 1: and they're respected and they're treated well. And I respect
Speaker 1: her for that because service workers kids, it's a shitty
Speaker 1: job sometimes when you're dealing with people who are in
Speaker 1: a Russia have the attitude it's hell to keep firm
Speaker 1: and keep faithful and be just be nice. We have
Speaker 1: an amazing crew. These people are um are getting a
Speaker 1: second chance at going forward in life. And I wanted
Speaker 1: to appreciate Chokla for that because we we we were
Speaker 1: just going to hire people that you know, deserve the job,
Speaker 1: which could have been anything from twenty year old kids
Speaker 1: making it through college to you know what I'm saying, um,
Speaker 1: sixteen year old kid who just wanted a job when
Speaker 1: you got off got out of school. But she made
Speaker 1: sure that had people who were interested in taking the
Speaker 1: whole ride with us. And what she's doing is growing
Speaker 1: more operations managers versus just employing people. And I really
Speaker 1: appreciate her for that. I want to bring back to
Speaker 1: the music and ask a little bit how your your
Speaker 1: partnership musically has has changed or grown if it has
Speaker 1: over the years. You guys have been making music together
Speaker 1: for seven or eight years now? Ten now? Ten? Can
Speaker 1: you count rap music? Yeah? Yeah, so ten years now?
Speaker 1: And gels yeah seven eight and and LP you were
Speaker 1: you were talking about walking in the Snow. How that
Speaker 1: track grew? It sounded like a lot of those production
Speaker 1: decisions are made face to face. Has that changed over
Speaker 1: time or was that the method from the start. I'm
Speaker 1: sort of always making the record in a sense, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm always making the music. I'm always tweaking in. Um So,
Speaker 1: the face to face with me and Mike comes when
Speaker 1: I have something to present him. My greatest thrill is
Speaker 1: inspiring my my rap partner. Like that's like and when
Speaker 1: it comes to when it comes to that first level
Speaker 1: is making something that I think is beautiful and and
Speaker 1: something that I think is working. Um but when I
Speaker 1: but when I get with Mike, the first round is
Speaker 1: just presenting him with like a menu list of of
Speaker 1: things that I already know that if if he likes something,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm good to go. Because I'm inspired by them.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't play Mike anything that I don't like.
Speaker 1: I don't play him anything that I wouldn't wrap on myself. UM,
Speaker 1: and you know, be you know, and then we whittle
Speaker 1: it down because because the second wave is about inspiration,
Speaker 1: the second wave is about what happens, you know, once
Speaker 1: once this music that I've been working on, um, hits
Speaker 1: the ears of my partner and hits us together in
Speaker 1: a room. You know, there's a different dynamic between me
Speaker 1: and Mike than there is with us alone. And we
Speaker 1: don't really do the we don't do these records. Um.
Speaker 1: When it comes to writing them and and and recording them.
Speaker 1: We do them in the same room, you know, we
Speaker 1: do them in the same place. May not always be
Speaker 1: at the same hour, um, but but we're always there,
Speaker 1: We're always around each other. And so that energy between
Speaker 1: me and him is different than what what might happen
Speaker 1: just alone, if I would just set set alone and
Speaker 1: just write some ship to my own music. So that
Speaker 1: inspiration thing is that really one of the most important parts.
Speaker 1: You know, you bring the first level of sort of
Speaker 1: music in and and then once once we kind of
Speaker 1: go away after we were inspired, I kind of go
Speaker 1: back in and tinker more and it's and we keep
Speaker 1: doing that over and over again. Um, that's always been
Speaker 1: the method. The truth of the matter is is that
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, I I feel like
Speaker 1: it's evolved to the point where I know my partner
Speaker 1: enough to know that he is in tune with me
Speaker 1: and to know that if I really think some ship
Speaker 1: is dope, is a good chance that Mike is gonna
Speaker 1: think it's it's great too. There's just a trust there
Speaker 1: with that, and then ultimately you have to really confront
Speaker 1: it like, Okay, is this do you really feel? You know,
Speaker 1: if I change some ship or a funk around with it,
Speaker 1: I got it. I got I gotta run it past
Speaker 1: my partner because this is his record too. He has
Speaker 1: to be able to know that this is wrapping him
Speaker 1: and he has to feel it like that's the only criteria.
Speaker 1: Everybody got to feel it. So there have been things
Speaker 1: that have changed simply just because it was a matter
Speaker 1: of making sure that everybody was like fully on the
Speaker 1: same page. For me, I can I can keep going,
Speaker 1: I can keep working with ship, you know. So that's
Speaker 1: been my my joy of being a collaborative partner with
Speaker 1: Mike and and how it's developed over the years because
Speaker 1: Mike is I trust our um simpatico. I trust I
Speaker 1: trust our connection, you know, with music. And I also
Speaker 1: love that I get to react off of someone else.
Speaker 1: I love that I get to react off Mike is
Speaker 1: my audience. Mike is the audience to me and Mike,
Speaker 1: you brought up rap music and you you've talked in
Speaker 1: the past about how you you pretty much hustled LP
Speaker 1: to produce that whole album. Yeah, it's gonna come on
Speaker 1: for a track or two, and you were like, no, No,
Speaker 1: you're doing the whole thing. You're doing the whole To
Speaker 1: take me back to that moment, what were you hearing
Speaker 1: in his beats and his tracks that made made you
Speaker 1: want to hustle this guy for a whole album, I'll
Speaker 1: take you back a little further. So after after Monster
Speaker 1: on Columbia, UM was a Dave McPherson, whoever was running it,
Speaker 1: taught me about a profit and loss sheet and how
Speaker 1: even though I hadn't went gold, that I had made
Speaker 1: the company money and that's why they weren't going to
Speaker 1: promote it anymore. And get back in the studio and
Speaker 1: let's get another album going. Out like this sucks, dick.
Speaker 1: No one ever told me about this part of the game, right, Like,
Speaker 1: wait a second, it would have been better if you
Speaker 1: lost money. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. So I
Speaker 1: was searching for what I realized that Outcaans had was
Speaker 1: an amazing machine to put me out had I been
Speaker 1: ready with my own sound and identity. But what they
Speaker 1: didn't have was the time to develop another artist, as
Speaker 1: they were at the biggest moment in their careers. And
Speaker 1: and nor was it fair to ask that of them?
Speaker 1: You know what? What what they did not have was
Speaker 1: someone to help me through finding Mike. It wasn't there
Speaker 1: responsibility to have is the responsibility here, dope ship. And
Speaker 1: with that said L Well before I got to L,
Speaker 1: I went in and locked in with Ray Murray. And
Speaker 1: when me and Ray Murray locked in, we did records
Speaker 1: that felt like, um, what the guy who became half
Speaker 1: of Run of Jewels would have been doing. And the
Speaker 1: other half of the records felt um distinctly Southern smooth, slick,
Speaker 1: and the thing that that that he could do and
Speaker 1: that he is a hybrid up. So you're here in
Speaker 1: just you're hearing a Southern flow over a booming ass
Speaker 1: grind grind out track, but it's distinctly Southern. So I
Speaker 1: remember playing those for Puff. I played like six records
Speaker 1: for Pluck. Three were what would have become the prequel
Speaker 1: to like A Run of Jewels type m C three
Speaker 1: were Southern, slick, astatic, and Puff said, I like a both.
Speaker 1: He said, man, you really do both well. And then
Speaker 1: I said, but which one you like the most for me?
Speaker 1: And he looked at me and he said the hard
Speaker 1: ship he and and that was it. And now this
Speaker 1: is six years later, probably I meet L And when
Speaker 1: Al played the first beat, the second beat, and the
Speaker 1: third beat, I knew this. I was born to wrap
Speaker 1: on LP beats. No one was born to wrap on
Speaker 1: LP beats like me, including LP. Because LP is the
Speaker 1: greatest rapper producer on Earth. So because he has to
Speaker 1: be a rapper and producer, that is the only thing
Speaker 1: that gives me the edge. I am born to rap
Speaker 1: on his beat. And then I just then I just
Speaker 1: had to convince him to do it. And Jason DeMarco
Speaker 1: was in my co conspirait with James DeMarco. Jason was like,
Speaker 1: fuck that, we'll find the money. Don't even worry about
Speaker 1: calling any other producers. This This went exactly as I
Speaker 1: hoped it did. And then I just started aggravating shot
Speaker 1: out of L, calling, hey, how are you doing the
Speaker 1: beautiful la you like a girl? Hey what do you do?
Speaker 1: You want to go lunch? And I just started, well,
Speaker 1: you know, just gnawing that, like, come on, man, we
Speaker 1: gotta do this. And the next thing, you know, him
Speaker 1: and Jason worked it out and the rest is history.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad that l took that chance because he
Speaker 1: had been burnt by a lot of people. Ell is
Speaker 1: on ell is an amazing dude, and a lot of
Speaker 1: times people would take that amazing and they'll use it
Speaker 1: and they'll abuse it. And I'm not just talking about
Speaker 1: the old musicians who I don't know. I people have
Speaker 1: sucked us over for charities and ship and Ellen steadfastly
Speaker 1: just been one of the most giving, loving, encouraging, dope
Speaker 1: human beings. So I was I was like, man, this
Speaker 1: white boy gonna go to the top. I'm sorry, like
Speaker 1: we're taking this sight got away man, And here we
Speaker 1: go years later, just getting just getting started. I feel
Speaker 1: like the four record Um Quadruful No was our was
Speaker 1: our cornerstone, and we have appeerramid to build now and
Speaker 1: we'll we'll see where we are in fifteen twenty years
Speaker 1: going into rock and roll Hall of Fame. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: I've seen you guys at Madison Square Garden, so I
Speaker 1: know you can turn it out. I said, I saw
Speaker 1: you guys open for Jack White, and that was some
Speaker 1: some ship to see two guys walk on stage and
Speaker 1: hold that place the way you guys did. Hell yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: moment man, thanks yeah, And you know when the Rage
Speaker 1: Tour goes, we're gonna be doing that ship uh fun
Speaker 1: before that show too, because it's as yeah, hell yeah, man,
Speaker 1: Like Jack White is important, he's big, but I'm still
Speaker 1: a black guy from Atlanta. So I was like, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: well Jack White, like, Yo, this is big. We can't
Speaker 1: funk up, you can't get too high. For get your works.
Speaker 1: We got just they're gonna, they're gonna. We went out
Speaker 1: and well, that's that's just, that's just because when you're
Speaker 1: when you're born and raised in New York City, getting
Speaker 1: New York play, getting a chance to play Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 1: I mean we literally have a song on our record
Speaker 1: that's inspired by that getting a chance to play Madison
Speaker 1: Square garden is is to some degree you feel like, well,
Speaker 1: once I do that, I can retire, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And there have been amazing moments like that for us
Speaker 1: that really, um let us know that, um, we were
Speaker 1: on the right track in the sense that like the
Speaker 1: way that we approached our show and the way that
Speaker 1: we gave gave to our show. Um. Once we never
Speaker 1: changed that, Like even when we were doing small clubs,
Speaker 1: when we first started and we were doing small clubs
Speaker 1: and we were doing five hundred people, and sometimes it
Speaker 1: wasn't five hundred people and sometimes it was a thousand people,
Speaker 1: but that it was a humble. It was a humble
Speaker 1: you know. It was a humble you know, underground hip
Speaker 1: hop groups, touring schedule, you know. But we never acted
Speaker 1: like we never you know, for us, it was always
Speaker 1: just like, well, this is our stage. So we were
Speaker 1: gonna play this ship like we're run DMC at fresh Fest.
Speaker 1: We're gonna play this ship like. And and when when
Speaker 1: it came time for the for for us to actually
Speaker 1: get those opportunities and people started bringing us out to
Speaker 1: do stadiums, um and arenas, etcetera, it wasn't much of
Speaker 1: a transition for us to be able to hold that
Speaker 1: down because I don't know, I guess some people do
Speaker 1: things differently. Maybe some people give us small our show
Speaker 1: for a smaller venue, But we always gave the biggest
Speaker 1: show that we could in our heads and every venue,
Speaker 1: so it didn't really change. When we got into that stage.
Speaker 1: It was I was like, oh, ship, we can do this.
Speaker 1: It was you know. We then went on a tour
Speaker 1: with I mean, of course we've done huge festivals and
Speaker 1: been in front of hundreds of thousands of people, and
Speaker 1: but yeah, the Lord Tour was also a big one.
Speaker 1: The Lord Tour was interesting because that was our first
Speaker 1: straight and tour of arenas, and we were the opening
Speaker 1: directly before a wonderful musician who's absolutely not in our genre,
Speaker 1: you know, like absolutely didn't share a fan base with us,
Speaker 1: so she loved our music. She brought us on, and
Speaker 1: we knew that that was we knew that that was
Speaker 1: our sort of tour where we knew every single night
Speaker 1: it was our job to turn an audience that and
Speaker 1: sometimes there was a lot of running tools fans, but
Speaker 1: most for the most part, it was mostly of course
Speaker 1: Lord fans who didn't really know who we were. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you had that first wave that was like the first
Speaker 1: roads would be, but our fans were like in the
Speaker 1: middle and back. But what was weird is that there
Speaker 1: were so many dates right out there. There were there
Speaker 1: were dates, There were dad daughter dates, and there were
Speaker 1: just like young guy young girl dates. And when we
Speaker 1: came out and started smashing, you could see the dads
Speaker 1: and daughters, you could see the girlfriend and boyfriends. You
Speaker 1: could see the women turned to the men and look
Speaker 1: at them like you motherfucker, and the guys are looking
Speaker 1: like hell fucking yes, like I thought you were doing
Speaker 1: something for me. You were doing something for you exactly.
Speaker 1: That was I must say that that was one of
Speaker 1: the things because I always watched the crowd. I noticed
Speaker 1: that and then what you know, it didn't It was
Speaker 1: even if it was just a couple of dozen or
Speaker 1: a couple of hundreds some nights, it was enough for
Speaker 1: me to know that that that that we're going places
Speaker 1: baby with because I was the only way my sisters
Speaker 1: were gonna get me to go see fucking let let
Speaker 1: me see who was my love? ABC is if ice
Speaker 1: Cube that would be an interesting pairing, I think, Uh,
Speaker 1: I know, right. We got to talk about the last
Speaker 1: track on the album a few words for the firing squad.
Speaker 1: So this is something, this is, this is intense, something
Speaker 1: maybe a little different for Run the Jewels LP. You've
Speaker 1: you've said, this song is for the women in your lives.
Speaker 1: You you talk about your wife and your sister, Mike,
Speaker 1: you talk about your mom passing, and and your wife
Speaker 1: who who says you she needs a husband more than
Speaker 1: the world needs another martyr. Tell me about putting this
Speaker 1: song together. It started just as a sound bed, not
Speaker 1: very dissimilar from what you hear in the final product,
Speaker 1: you know, the final product, um, and which is interesting
Speaker 1: because it mind, I always thought that it would evolve
Speaker 1: and there would be drums and it would be it
Speaker 1: would you know, I intended to turn this thing into
Speaker 1: more of a traditional sort of beat, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: I thought that there would be there would be a
Speaker 1: build up, but then it would be we'd be wrapping
Speaker 1: over drums. But the strings that we have, um, you know,
Speaker 1: laid down and the and um just the sort of
Speaker 1: the the baseline and the energy of it was so
Speaker 1: invocative and just um that it moved both of us.
Speaker 1: I think I did if I did my verse first,
Speaker 1: and you know, a lot of times will run the Jewels.
Speaker 1: For the most part, you're hearing the unfolding of inspiration
Speaker 1: as it happens. In other words, if a lot of times,
Speaker 1: if if Mike is first, that's because Mike had an
Speaker 1: idea first, you know, UM, and vice versa. And on
Speaker 1: this particular one, I had been moved to by this music.
Speaker 1: I have been sort of just listening to it and
Speaker 1: it was really it really put me somewhere. UM, and
Speaker 1: I put my verse down first, and you know the
Speaker 1: UM and Mike followed and and you know, me and Mike,
Speaker 1: you know, back to your question about how our our
Speaker 1: creative relationship has evolved, I think that we have an
Speaker 1: unspoken ability to pick up on what the other person
Speaker 1: is feeling and two and and then to come in
Speaker 1: with something that compliments. And now it's never about doing.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not like, oh, I'm gonna do what
Speaker 1: you did and you know, it's it's more like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna honor the spirit of where you are on this
Speaker 1: and UM, I think, UM, this is a good example
Speaker 1: of that where it was just really beautifully syncd up
Speaker 1: where we we knew. Mike knew what I was trying
Speaker 1: to do with this when I when I laid my
Speaker 1: my verse down, and my verse was very personal. I
Speaker 1: think they're both very very personal, both of them. Um,
Speaker 1: and they're also defiant and they're also you know. And
Speaker 1: I think that it's my favorite Run the Jewels song
Speaker 1: on this record, and maybe one of my favorite Run
Speaker 1: the Jewels songs ever, because it captures everything that I
Speaker 1: think really Jamie and Micro about more so than the
Speaker 1: characters of LP and Killer Mike. UM. And every record
Speaker 1: has to have that moment where you take your superhero
Speaker 1: cape off and just and you're just lay bare, like
Speaker 1: this is really who we are, period. There's no playing
Speaker 1: around on that song. It's it's it's it's very genuinely
Speaker 1: both of us, and it's everything that I love about
Speaker 1: what we can accomplish together and when we're really in
Speaker 1: that zone. And you can't do this for every song,
Speaker 1: but unique because it needs to be special and you
Speaker 1: need to feel it. It needs to be um, it
Speaker 1: needs to be time for you to do this. But
Speaker 1: laying yourself there and even risking some people not completely
Speaker 1: getting exactly what you know, I'm talking about things that
Speaker 1: only my sister and my mother know about, you know,
Speaker 1: that really know about and referencing those things, but also
Speaker 1: the fact that there's defiance and that we're relating who
Speaker 1: we are and what formed us to what our attitude
Speaker 1: is now. And I think that when you when you know,
Speaker 1: when you leave this record, um, hopefully what you feel
Speaker 1: from that song is almost like an emotional history to
Speaker 1: qualify and for people to understand why we stand up
Speaker 1: the way that we do when we stand up, what
Speaker 1: it is that it means to us, and how the
Speaker 1: people in our lives are really have influenced us to
Speaker 1: try and be better man, try and be um honorable man.
Speaker 1: And Mike, when it came to your verse, when when
Speaker 1: Jamie laid down his verse and it came to you,
Speaker 1: where where was your head? At? My head? It's been
Speaker 1: fucked up few like we get two of those three years.
Speaker 1: My mother, you know it's been gone. You know my
Speaker 1: mother was chilenge. She had so her mom was my mom.
Speaker 1: And I remember my grandmother died. My grandmother died like
Speaker 1: eight years ago, and it just fucked me up, Like
Speaker 1: I didn't even talk for a day. I was just
Speaker 1: my sister is like, you gotta get over there to
Speaker 1: get passes. You gotta you know, you gotta Samity the league.
Speaker 1: So you know, like you told my grandfather died, you
Speaker 1: got a day or two the morning. But you know,
Speaker 1: with that, said my sister, I was so hurt. My
Speaker 1: sister and wife dressed my grandmother's body, and you know
Speaker 1: it's just traditional Southern stuff, right, But man, I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I thought that death had hit me with the hardest
Speaker 1: Lord could hit me with. You know, my grandmother and
Speaker 1: my mother. My mother told me, she said, you know,
Speaker 1: I know you love your grandmother, but when I go,
Speaker 1: you donna understand, and that I'm your mother. Yea. So
Speaker 1: we had this lifelong relationship where she was a big
Speaker 1: sister as much as a mother, and I saw as
Speaker 1: a mother. She was my mommy, but I never felt
Speaker 1: it like I felt it when she died. And we
Speaker 1: had stayed in Europe to do for Runner Jewels business,
Speaker 1: and I made the decision to say, but I M
Speaker 1: just you know, sometimes you just feel like maybe I
Speaker 1: didn't make the right call, you know. And luckily my
Speaker 1: man sleepy Head got to the hospital, so I got
Speaker 1: a chance to talk to her. You know, place time
Speaker 1: I think the plane was taken off, I was still
Speaker 1: on it. But somehow I once spoke you on that all.
Speaker 1: I was glad it happened, because she was dead by
Speaker 1: the time I landed. She had transitioned. But I didn't
Speaker 1: go to therapy afterwards. I didn't talk to any mentors,
Speaker 1: religious scholars. I literally just went back to work. I
Speaker 1: remember that knew heard her birthday would have been on
Speaker 1: January three. We were in Australia following year, and my
Speaker 1: wife put together impromptu breakfast and the crew and Hell
Speaker 1: and his wife and everybody came down and it just
Speaker 1: made me feel better. But that was just a grief there,
Speaker 1: and this record gave me an opportunity to just pour
Speaker 1: and it just you know, I listened to it now
Speaker 1: and still tier up because you know, my mom was
Speaker 1: just She was a beautiful, beautiful soul that was tormented
Speaker 1: out the world. Like people who are addicts are terribly sensitive.
Speaker 1: People who are depressed a lot of times spend their
Speaker 1: time making other people happy, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And she did all of that. And the best description
Speaker 1: is uh ex d boy who turned into a real
Speaker 1: estate guy who took his mom's with his mom left
Speaker 1: him after he died in gut A small, little nice
Speaker 1: fortune for itself out of the cab. He said myself, like,
Speaker 1: I lost my life, coach when your mom died, and
Speaker 1: and I said, yeah, man, the coach has gone. And
Speaker 1: she did that for even though she couldn't be a
Speaker 1: mother to me. She was so much of a mother
Speaker 1: and guy and coach to so many dudes to get
Speaker 1: them out of the streets and legitimize themselves. And my mother,
Speaker 1: you know, it was. She could be a hard personality
Speaker 1: to deal with. So I'm at peace with the fact
Speaker 1: I wasn't there. I'm at peace with the fact we
Speaker 1: talked so we knew she I'm at peace that with
Speaker 1: the fact that I couldn't be there. But I needed
Speaker 1: to say it in that record gaming opportunity because I
Speaker 1: wanted to say it. I didn't know how to say
Speaker 1: it at that time. I was so angry, you know,
Speaker 1: just angry. I couldn't even sit on couching and get
Speaker 1: it out to a therapist. I had to get it
Speaker 1: out in song. And you know, I was just being
Speaker 1: myself up physically. We were we were going too hard.
Speaker 1: So I'm glad the record game the opportunity to pour
Speaker 1: it out. I'm glad that I made peace with that.
Speaker 1: There's a shrine for my mother and grandmother up in
Speaker 1: my house you know, of course my wife and not
Speaker 1: spiritual leash you on me, your ancestors. So they're they're
Speaker 1: trying for the people that have been here before. But
Speaker 1: my mother's is the one that I talked to daily.
Speaker 1: I get up every single morning and and and could
Speaker 1: make sure I communicate, you know, with her. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, So that ad meant a lot to me.
Speaker 1: That record steal means and Chris the very last thing
Speaker 1: on the record. We circle back around to the Yankee
Speaker 1: and the brave concept. So I need to ask you
Speaker 1: baseball is starting back up. Are you guys genuinely into
Speaker 1: the Yankees and the Braves? Are you looking forward to it?
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a brave thing. No, although I can show
Speaker 1: you pictures of me is like a five row over
Speaker 1: the Yankee had on the in Yankee stadium. Um, but no, no,
Speaker 1: I don't care. I don't. I don't. I'm sorry. I
Speaker 1: wish I could. But what I do love about sports
Speaker 1: is uh and I don't follow it. Is what I
Speaker 1: mean when I said I don't care, I just don't
Speaker 1: follow it. I do enjoy sports. Um, we've also lived
Speaker 1: on a bus that years. So it's hard to watch.
Speaker 1: But that's no excuse for That's no excuse for me.
Speaker 1: I I lost the plot like thirty years ago. But
Speaker 1: I love the community that it brings. And I do
Speaker 1: and I and you know, especially if you're in New Yorker,
Speaker 1: like I've rocked a Yankee hat forever, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: tell you three people on the current Yankees team, Like
Speaker 1: I couldn't even tell you just because it's just my
Speaker 1: session became music. I never really you know, I never
Speaker 1: followed it in the same way that a lot of
Speaker 1: other people do, but I do love the community of it.
Speaker 1: We felt like that was the right place to put
Speaker 1: that song, really kind of at the edge of the
Speaker 1: precipice of like, well, did they get shot? You know,
Speaker 1: did they die? You know? Did they get killed by
Speaker 1: the firing squad? And I love that. Um, the record
Speaker 1: got to end with oh no, they're still alive. And
Speaker 1: and now here's the loop. It goes right back into
Speaker 1: the episode. You know, Um, we have no interest in
Speaker 1: leaving people down. We have interest in surviving and going forward.
Speaker 1: And they're and they're being even emotionally when people listen
Speaker 1: to the record. We just didn't want anybody to We
Speaker 1: wanted the note to be funny and exciting when we left.
Speaker 1: You know, um, I just want Freddie Freeman to get
Speaker 1: cured of COVID and for a ConA and Freeman and
Speaker 1: Nick to lead us to another World championship. Because I
Speaker 1: still love the Atlanta Blanks and I don't like the
Speaker 1: Mets so often I tipped my head to the Yankees.
Speaker 1: You gotta understand that women, I was a kid. When
Speaker 1: I was a kid, we used to play. We used
Speaker 1: to We used to cut class, drink forties and playing handball.
Speaker 1: That was my sports. Where we used to go or
Speaker 1: we used and that was like just an excuse to
Speaker 1: hang out with your friends and smoke weed and hit
Speaker 1: a ball against That was she was fun. And then
Speaker 1: and then we used to skateboard, and that was another
Speaker 1: excuse to cut school, and and and then people are like,
Speaker 1: oh man, you're not in the sports. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: first of all, you gotta understand New York City, we
Speaker 1: didn't have like dope beautiful sports facilities, like you know,
Speaker 1: we were playing in like public parks and Ship had
Speaker 1: patchy dirt and ship and glass, and people were leaving
Speaker 1: cracked stems and ship and like and you know, dogship
Speaker 1: and like and and then I also never quite understood
Speaker 1: the joy of being yelled at, like I just don't like. Yo,
Speaker 1: you don't understand the joy of being yo? That what
Speaker 1: are you doing in the group? You know? I'm I'm
Speaker 1: doing the yell motherfucker yo. I was on the phone
Speaker 1: with Matt Ryan and Pat the uh, the Falcons quarterback yesterday,
Speaker 1: and I was talking about this asshole teacher I had
Speaker 1: who turned out I loved her because she taught me
Speaker 1: civics and politics and miss Ellison man Matt after I
Speaker 1: told he said, Yo, man, my fucking little league coach
Speaker 1: was that asshole coach box He Matt is one of
Speaker 1: the greatest quarterbacks in the world right now thanks to
Speaker 1: that asshole coach, right, I hear you, And you know
Speaker 1: what he needed, that tough love. I'm a rapper. You
Speaker 1: know if you listen to me and l story, you
Speaker 1: would literally think he was a black kid in the
Speaker 1: group because I grew up, we would we would all
Speaker 1: my whole neighborhoods. So the guys sleep from church to Sleep.
Speaker 1: The episode from my TV show Sleep really is My
Speaker 1: best friend? Like in terms of that's like a group
Speaker 1: of best friends that I have from different like from
Speaker 1: the streets. Sleep always make sure I was good. We
Speaker 1: went to we met each other gambling at the bottom
Speaker 1: of a church. But he played baseball when we were kids,
Speaker 1: so the whole community would go watch all kids play
Speaker 1: baseball on Saturdays, is what we did. I grew up
Speaker 1: in this wildly weird, wholesome like all black enclave of
Speaker 1: mixed in com stability and l grew up in the
Speaker 1: grimy streets in New York. It's so if you just
Speaker 1: if you just told people, yo, there's a black guy,
Speaker 1: there's the white guy. One guy grew up and it
Speaker 1: was never played and the other guy grew up with
Speaker 1: like baseball leagues. They swear to God they think of no.
Speaker 1: But you make it sound like I grew up on
Speaker 1: like like I was grew up on, you know, in
Speaker 1: the school of hard Nights, and I had it if
Speaker 1: I had it fine in terms of the facilities, for sure,
Speaker 1: for sure, like sports was never a thing. Like it's like,
Speaker 1: wait a second, so you're saying you want me to
Speaker 1: sign up to spend my time that's after school for
Speaker 1: the most part, Like you want me to stay in school,
Speaker 1: put on some uncomfortable ship, run around in the city area,
Speaker 1: get yelled at constantly by some dood who I think
Speaker 1: is an asshole, and then you want me to go.
Speaker 1: Then you want me to go do a communal shower
Speaker 1: with everybody. That's what your plan for me is. And
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, I'm and and suffice to say,
Speaker 1: I was out of high school by the age of sixteen. Cool, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was done. I was in musical engineering school. Piece. Well,
Speaker 1: so your tour has been rerouted for next year. Is
Speaker 1: that what we're thinking? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what it's.
Speaker 1: I mean that we made. They made Rage made the
Speaker 1: official reconfirmation of the of the whole tour starting next year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: starting in Coachella obviously in April and starting in June
Speaker 1: with the tour, and that's all. Of course, we're praying,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's it's whatever's out there that that
Speaker 1: that happens, and maybe America gets his fucking ship together
Speaker 1: so we can have some fun again. Yeah. Well here's uh,
Speaker 1: here's hoping so because we really do want to hear
Speaker 1: this album live. Uh, And and guys, I really want
Speaker 1: to thank you for being here. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us man, thank you, thank you, absolutely thank you. Alright,
Speaker 1: alright later. Inside the Studio is a production of I
Speaker 1: heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, check
Speaker 1: out the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts.