Risking hubris with characteristic chutzpah, Run the Jewels bound on tonight to the strains of Queen’s We Are the Champions, Killer Mike promising to “burn this joint to the motherfucking ground”.
It’s the biggest room they’ve played in the UK to date, and a hot, humid, sold-out vindication for two 40-year-old veterans experiencing long-delayed success. El-P helped New York’s hip-hop underground blossom in the late 90s as one third of Company Flow, but equated life on James Murdoch’s Rawkus label with being “mouth-fucked by Nazis”, forming his own Definitive Jux Records and navigating deeper into the subterranea. Killer Mike, meanwhile, was feted by fellow Atlantans Outkast, but spent much of the noughties benched by his label, Sony.
As Run the Jewels, however, they’ve given away two albums as free downloads and won a whole new, rapidly growing fanbase. The music is uncompromising, marrying the minimal dynamism of Run DMC to the pointed chaos of the Bomb Squad and the window-rattling throb of dubstep. Tonight, the impact is instant and fearsome: basslines that could level mountain ranges, machine drums that bustle and blitz, and a turntablist (DJ Trackstar) slicing up shards of white noise. But, like all bleeding-edge hip-hop at its greatest, Run the Jewels make the avant-garde anthemic.
The messages are blunt: Lie, Cheat, Steal’s hookline of “Everybody’s doin’ it” wears its cynicism like a shield; the doomy, powerful Early confronts the perpetual fear of police violence. (Mike, who’s spoken out at length about Ferguson, and whose dad was a police officer, announces: “I reserve the right to fuck you up for violating my rights.”) No mere nihilists, RTJ seem to want to arm the listeners with truths, but whatever their intention the results are combustive: the pulse-quickening drums and whistles of All Due Respect feel like the moment a carnival rolls over into riot.
As the mammoth, shuddering Angel Duster draws to a close, the din is punctuated by impromptu chants of “R!T!J!”, the crowd clapping along in solid unison like extras from the Radio Ga Ga video. This is what burning a venue to the motherfucking ground looks like, and Run the Jewels are ready to hurl their molotovs at the next level.
