Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Close Your Eyes (And Count to Fuck) (2014)
Protest music isn't what it used to be. One could argue that given the state of politics, there should be more protest music than ever. But most artists don't want to risk losing fans over political statements. This has never been a concern for Run the Jewels, the hip hop duo comprised of Killer Mike and El-P.
The group formed in 2012 after El-P (Jaime Meline) produced Killer Mike's (Michael Render) album R.A.P. Music and the two went on tour together. After the tour went well, they decided to form Run the Jewels and released their self-titled debut in 2013.
RTJ gave the album away as a free download, but there was nothing throwaway about their music. It was a powerful combination of Killer Mike's booming anti-authoritarian flow with El-P's edgy, NYC-centric wiseass persona. The two held nothing back and played well off each other.
They followed the same pattern for their second album, Run the Jewels 2, which came out in October 2014 as a free download, but also sold through Mass Appeal and RBC Records. The two rappers step up their game, somehow coming off more angry and sarcastic at the same time.
The standout track is "Close Your Eyes (And Count to Fuck)," featuring Zach de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine, who El-P had worked with previously. It's a high-energy banger about police brutality that kicks off with a sample of de la Rocha as the main hook. Mike starts it off with a call to arms.
"Fascist slave, you protestin' to get in a fuckin' look book/Everything I scribbles part of the Anarchist Cookbook/(Look good, posing in a centerfold of Crook Book)/Black on black on black with a ski mask, that is my crook look/How you like my stylin', bruh? Ain't nobody stylin', bruh/'Bout to turn this mothafucka up like Riker's Island, bruh."
El-P weighs in.
"We out of order, your honor, you're out of order/This whole court is unimportant, you fuckers are walkin' corpses/I'm a flip wig synonym, livin' within distortion/I'll bite into a cyanide molar before you whores win/I'm a New Yorkian, I fuck for the jump/I wear my Yankee hat so tilted I actually walk with a hunch/Look at Mikey, I think he likey, we are sinister sons/(Aye, we the type to beat the preacher with a grin and a gun)."
But the real difference maker is de la Rocha, who spits pure fire, dropping in references to Miles Davis and Philip K. Dick like it was nothing.
"It's de la on the cut, liftin' 6 on your stitchy crew/I'm miles ahead of you, you can sip my bitches brew/My battle status is burning mansions from Dallas to Malibu/Check my resume, your residence is residue/Call her a skin job and my honey dip'll backflip for you/You playin' God, your eye sockets, she gon' rip in two/We sick of bleedin' out a trace, spray a victim, you/Done dyin', Philip A-K Dickin' you."
No stranger to pissed-off tirades, de la Rocha closes out from the top rope.
"With clips in the bottom, we dippin' from Gotham/Yes eclipsed by the shadows, a dark dance to the coffin/I'm a fellow with melanin, a suspect in a felony/Ripped like Rakim Allah, feds is checkin' my melody/Yes aggressively tested we'll bump stretchers and penalties/Dump cases with face and the cop pleas when we seizin' a pump/With reason to dump on you global Grand Dragons/Still pilin' fast, plus Afghani toe taggin'/Now they trackin' me and we bustin' back, see/The only thing that close faster than our caskets be the factory."
The video for the song is powerful, a black and white depiction of a non-stop battle between a police officer and a black man (played by Shea Whigham and LaKeith Stanfield). Normally, I'd have an embed for you below, but it's currently blocked by YouTube because of a licensing rights battle with the performing rights organization SESAC. Definitely check it out whenever it comes back.
RTJ has released two more powerful albums in the last decade, the most recent being 2020's RTJ4, which was my favorite album of that year. Killer Mike released a solo album last year, and hopefully RTJ will return with another album soon. God knows there's plenty of material for them to write about.
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