2014 has felt like a banner year for surprise records. Since Beyoncé ambushed her fans with a self-titled visual album in December 2013, several other artists have chucked record industry process aside and followed suit. U2 forced their album upon listeners with an automatic iTunes download. Radiohead’s Thom Yorke slapped an unannounced solo offering on BitTorrent, the file-sharing site. And, with one tweet, Run the Jewels shared Run the Jewels 2 three days early, the rappers posting an “aw fuck it, we couldn’t wait any longer” message along with the download link.
Perhaps it was silly to expect Run the Jewels to release their first “proper” album on its scheduled date. After all, the duo – El-P, from New York, and Killer Mike, from Atlanta – have both spent their 20-odd years in hip-hop imbuing their music with a clattering sense of rebellion. Run the Jewels 2 was simply more evidence of them doing so, a record that started aggressively with Jeopardy and continued in much the same vein.
El-P has been known to talk about the importance of lyricism creeping back into hip-hop, after what he perceived as a period when wordplay and prose took a backseat. On Run the Jewels 2, he and Killer Mike placed their words centre-stage, tackling tough topics, from racial profiling in America to drug-dealer guilt and rough sex, with blazing streams of consciousness delivered in their two distinct, rapid-fire styles. “Conditions create a villain, the villain is givin’ vision / The vision becomes a vow to seek vengeance on all the vicious / Liars and politicians, profiteers of the prisons / The forehead engravers, enslavers of men and women,” ran the lyrics to Close Your Eyes in typically cheery style. On Love Again, a cunnilingus-focused verse sung by Gangsta Boo of Three 6 Mafia flips the gender script on Run the Jewels’ fellatio bravado, and should succeed in making most listeners blush.
Musically, too, Run the Jewels 2 was decidedly brutal, marrying screeching synth and electric guitar dissonance with the duo’s sharp and incisive verses. El-P’s abrasive production style even propelled songs like Early and prison-riot fantasy Close Your Eyes into noisy post-rock territory. It didn’t always make for easy listening, but then that’s what makes Run the Jewels such a thrilling proposition: they rap like a group who don’t necessarily care what you think about them.
Which album has topped your own list this year? Tell us in the form below, and we’ll round up your picks in a readers’ choice top 10.
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