Run the Jewels

I'm your host Joe Levy. So this time out I got to talk with LP and Killer Mike of Run the Jewels, who have made one of the hardest, craziest, and most politically charged hip hop albums of the year, although actually you could pretty much say that for any year in which Run the Jewels puts out an album, but still, the early June release of this one, which is called Run the Jewels four, felt a little deeper, coming as it did just weeks into the protest marches

that spread around the country and around the world after the killing of George Floyd by the police in Minneapolis. Run the Jewels four has been rightly hailed as an album that catches the mood of that moment. In fact, Killer Mike told me that he's heard from protest sster's around the country who have taken up one song from the album, it's called Walking in the Snow, as something

of an anthem on their marches. And in that track, Mike talks at one point about the TV news showing a man like him, that is, a black man choked out by the police, while whispering the words I can't breathe, which of course were the exact words used by both George Floyd Dismay and Eric Garner six years before that.

So the sad fact is that Walking in the Snow is a song that both describes a system that's been broken and deadly for a very long time and a song that feels like it was written ten minutes ago in reaction to what's happening right now. As Killer Mike and LP told me, Run the Jewels four was actually recorded last year. The original plan before the pandemic was to release the album in the spring and for Run the Jewels to go out on road with Rage against

the Machine, who were slated for a reunion gig at Coachella. Now. LP comes out of the nineties underground hip hop scene in New York. He was in the trio company Flow, and he was also a co founder of the crucial indie labeled Deaf Jucks. Killer Mike is from Atlanta. He earned his nickname as a battle rapper, and he made his recorded debut in two thousand on a cut from

the outcast classic Stanconia. And the two of them began working together about a decade ago when LP was slated to produce a couple of tracks on a Killer Mike solo album called Rap Music. Mike heard what LP had done and convinced him to produce the entire album, and part of what their partnership and Run the Jewels shows is how the Internet is just about a race, any space in between whatever we call alternative and mainstream hip hop.

I mean, we live in an age when music can come from anyone, any where, with or without a label, and it can sound like anything. A Round the Jewels track might be futuristic, or it might be an old school throwback. It might start out with some New York experimental rock and then shift into a Southern syrup e style and Run the Jewels for The guests include two Chains and Farrell on the one hand, and Josh Hammy from Queens of the Stone Age and Zach de Larroca

from Rage Against the Machine on the other. I mean this is music that does whatever it wants in the same way. Their music doesn't sound like just one thing. Their songs don't stay in just one place. These guys can move rapid fire from ship talking to heavy thinking, with a lot more in between. There's a fair amount of humor on Run the Jewels four. The album is set up as episode four of a ridiculous fictional television show cross between I Don't Know the A Team and

Dukes of Has Heard. Maybe it's that cop show that the Beastie Boys were starring in in the Sabotage video. Whatever it is, it's about two anti heroes on the run fighting against crooked cops, and it's called Yankee and the Brave, which is a reference to the Yankees and Atlanta Braves baseball caps that LP and Killer Mike ware. But the final track on the album is called a Few Words from the Firing Squad, and it goes somewhere

more emotional than these guys have gone before. LP told me about how originally he planned to put drums on this track. What you're hearing is almost what they started with, and once he and Killer Mike began putting their verses down and talking about the women in their lives and their core values, he decided against tinkering with it. I didn't want to take away from anything Mike was saying. I didn't want to take away from anything I was

saying by overproducing it. It needed to be something that felt really clear and felt and felt really powerful because I think that um it demanded it, you know what we were saying, as Jamie and Mike needed to be

front and center and needed to be heard. So LP and Killer Mike talked in depth about that song, and they also talked about how they've tried to keep their businesses Run the Jewels and also the other side businesses outside of music that they've started keep these things going during the pandemic, and most importantly, about how and why they worked together. Here's what else they had to say. Okay,

when Mike Lfie, welcome to inside the studio. Hey, thanks for having us man, although none of us are actually inside anything resembling a studio. I'm in my living room, l P, you're where are you? I'm just on a I'm just on a deck. I'm just on a deck, just on a deck. Not actually djaying on this particular deck, but no, no, look a literal wood deck. Yeah. Uh? And and and Mike, where you at? I'm in my gaudy ass dining room and my wife to side with

African mask on the wall and ship oh nice. Obviously Run the Jewels. For episode four of A Yankee and the Brave as you put it on. The first track has been received this one of the best albums of the year so far and most definitely an album that helps people, whether they're listening like me on their headphones, are out in the street, cope with things right now? And how does that feel? It's been amazing. I you know, it's connected with people on a level that we, you know,

are blown away by. You know, but you know, I think people love the music. I think people I think the music is is giving people energy, and I think that people are connecting with the spirit of the things. So I'm honored, man, I really am. I think that we just make we just made music, and we just try and please each other, you know, make sure that we feel like we repped you know who we are. And you don't know how people are gonna react to it,

but we felt like this was a special record. So to to to have people react like that is amazing. Feels good. Um awesome hip hop ship Like I'm loved that. It took times and it resonates. I'm loving it. People are wrapping out words. I'm missing y'all. I look forward to get out on the road next year. But just

the perfect phrases it just feels day, I'm good. And of course a lot of people are receiving it as very much an album at the moment, and I have to say, the tracks like Pulling the Pin do feel like they could have been written like ten minutes ago. But I've read that the album was originally scheduled for release in April, and it is. After all, it was to Run the Jewels album. You could go back to Thieves from Run the Jewels three, and you can hear

music that fits this moment. You go back to earlier, you can back you know, you go back to close your eyes, you can go back to you know, I think that we the truth is is that people are tuning into that frequency right now, and and and but the truth but like you said, I mean, this album was gonna drop in April, and we made it in two thousand nineteen, so you know, this is where this is where we were at in our heads in terms of our art and what we were looking at the

things that we were tackling. And so you know, um, you kind of wish that someday those types of some of the ideas that feel really relevant right now will never feel relevant again. You know. That's that's the hope, you know, and to me and Mike can do that, do our version of the kid and play kickstep or whatever it is that we got to come up with too, like you know, make happy music basically, um, those those

things are connecting with people. And more than anything, we wanted to give people something that just had life to it and energy to it and a little bit of um that. We didn't want something that was that felt like it was despair. We want something that felt like it was resilience, something that felt like it you know, it could translate like puff your chest out a little bit like yeah, you know, you know, we see what, you know, some of the things that are going on.

And yet I don't think you walk away from this record feeling defeated. I think that you walk away from this record feeling energy. I hope, you know. No. I mean I would say a lot of it is fight music, right yeah, yeah, for sure, thinking man's fight music or thinking people's fight music as it were, for sure. But one thing that that really resonates. I mean, Mike, you've talked about this, You've talked about hearing from people who are out protesting that they've taken up that track walking

in the snow as they march. Yeah, and that's such a strong record musically and lyrically. But but it is it's a fight song on some level, right it is, and and people have to understand that fight is the internal and external fight. It is the cental, spiritual and physical fight. You know, it is the warfare philosophy and ideology is good for people. It is absolutely a fight song and it gets you motivated. It is um just

really moves. And dare I say, is krump because that's what boo and that Memphis accent and energy gaze to what the feeling was. She brought that out and that you know. So, but the world, Doug gets so cold. You're walking in the snow, and people out there have called me. The homies have called me from Tampa and Sat Pete. The homies called me from New York. Homies called me from l A at different times where that

record was playing as people were protesting. So I'm very proud just made something that fits the mood of the moment and motivates people and pushes the movement forward past the moment. But like you said, it is you nailed it when you said, it's it's it's it's thinking man's fight music. Because really the fight that we are, the way that we're fighting on that song, it's been particular as we're fighting intellectually against some of the concepts and

some of the ideas that people are accepting. You know. Um, I think that there's an there's there's some obvious things that resonate really quickly with people, like for instance, you know, the clear thing about Mike who was referencing um, Eric Garner's death, and obviously that resonated really quickly and very clearly with the moment of just very very publicly had you know, everybody experiencing those words being uttered again and

the death of another black man in America. But what me and Mike are doing through the subtext of that whole song is trying to challenge and really debate some of the some of the mind frame and some of the intellectual positions that people are taking that are allowing this stuff to happen, that are allowing our ideals to be compromised. Um. And that's what I think is there in the song underneath it all. When when it finally you know, once that shock of of there being something

that sounds you know, really clearly of the moment. I think that there's something deeper there as well, you know, Mike saying, you know, never forget that you know about state Jesus was going by to stay and me challenging

the idea of being. You know, if you're a Christian and yet you somehow find yourself politically on the side of people who are caging children, then perhaps you're not as Christian as you purport to be to yourself and to others, you know, and you know, so it is a fight, but I think it's a fight for the hearts and my end of all of us. You know, it's not a record that says go out and fight.

It's physically, although that's a result um that can happen in culture and that you know sometimes has to happen. But really that record is a record of us saying, like, hey, let's take this to task. Let's fight against these ideas. If you really want to back up your you know, if you really want to back up your position, you know, here's here's our argument. You know, you know, there are

some production choices on this track. We're talking about walking in the snow that that really hit me the more I listened to it, and one in particular, you take that that channing noise, that sort of posse and effect yo yo noise out from the back, and it becomes a whole different track, right because you you lose that sense of community, but you also lose a little bit of that fighting spirit that we're talking about, right if you were to if you were to take it out,

if you were to take it out. So tell me a little bit about how this track comes together. Like, let's just talk about the recording, the concept, how does this all mesh? Which comes first? How's it happen? This track, more than maybe any on the album, evolved like really far from what it originally was. Elements of what it originally was made it into the track, But originally it was just one beat. It was a little bit more just straightforward all the way through. It was kind of

just this soulful, funky beat. We both laid down our our our main verses over that originally, and um, I just couldn't fight the feeling that this needed more, more of a dynamic thing to happen. It felt like it was a journey and that the music originally that we had wasn't complete. It didn't feel like the music was

bringing you on that journey as much. You know. UM, we created all these different sections and and and many of them changed and radically, you know, like originally under my under My Verse there was another totally different beat that I had tacked on and then you know, so it was just it was kind of a really epic and long creation of this thing and going back and forth and you know, sending it to Mike and being like,

what do you think of this? You know, we're kind of just playing off of each other and vibing off of of of how it felt, and ultimately sort of the original hook was just me sped up saying that, and I was like, oh, this isn't right, Like it kind of sounded like a shitty version of Gangster Boob, you know, and we were like, wait, we know the real Gangster Boo. We should get her on. UM. As a producer and as a technician, this was maybe the most intricate thing that we put together for the record.

It was really ultimately about five different pieces of music that got melded into one piece of music. And I think that when you when you hear it and you hear the changes, and you hear how things pull over and drag over into other sections, but every time you get to another section, it's sort of metamorphosizes. And that

was intentional. We wanted We wanted to follow how the conversation was changing as well throughout the song and highlight the fact that it was the same conversation with different perspectives and that so each moment had to have its own gravitas, like what Mike said, what he said, it had to have elements of that original soul beat that we had kind of created for him when that heat that inspired him. So it was it was tricky, but but I'm really proud of the way it all came together. Mike.

This is the track where you you bust out that line. We'd be the heroes. The breakers have changed the busters of locks and and maybe this is just nerd ing out too much, but I heard that like a little recasting of the famous run the Jewels hand sign. But the chain being snatched away maybe isn't one you wear around your neck. Maybe it's one that's holding you down mentally. Yeah, it's a retard to the thinking of down. You know what I mean. You can't tain't pick up your crown

holding when holding you down. Before you ever match bas yourself from many things physical, you gotta free your mind and heart of the need to be approved of by all the guards and the eagle. You know I mean, so you know we are We are the heroes to break and telling the bust of the lock. That's because our friendship, our musical camaraderie, out music all challenges convention

every step of the way. So it's not like I'm want to come to your hometown and necessarily open up the cage it or you, but hopefully what what what we do lyrically, besides just be badass and dope as fuck, it's gets you to take off some of the limits

you were told and nobody even knows why. So absolutely I think our music does that for people, because not because I'm arrogant enough to think that I have some magical superpower, because people have literally told us, like, your music makes me feel this way, And I've been like, when I start seeing Run of Julis to get grown up. When people were sucking kayak in a hundred miles on the river and surviving and climbing mountains and ship and

doing spark races. First of all, I was like, yo, that I don't want to do none of that ship. Our music liberates the soul and and good you know, good gospel music does that, you know anything music you feel? And I think that there's a there's a celebratory feel to this record, not like we've bothered, we pop the champagne, we've made it, but a celebration a lot because we ain't did it yet. Baby, So we're gonna keep all

living facts. And I think that you cast yourself, you know, you're you're we're in this, in this world and Jamie and Mike's world. You were authoring our own legend within the creativity that we have where we're we're right, we're writing our graphic novel, we're writing our film, we're writing our we're creating ourselves as as the image of of who we want to be, our avatars that exist within this plane. And we chose heroes. Now the heroes are

not um perfect. Well, I mean, the whole album is set up, is it's practiced by this idea of you Yankee from New York, brave Atlanta. You're on the run from cricket cops to to funk ups, petty petty criminal funk ups who are on the fucking run, and but who are at the end of the day standing up to something and standing in the moment. They're morals, They're just they believe the strippers should have a union. They support that. That's a real thing, and I really support

and you do actually say that on the record. Yeah, it may take table dances up to ten dollars, but I'll bite the bullet. You know, you're you're you're a good man. Wait where are you getting for ten dollars? Where I won't go? He's he's in Atlanta, Dude, He's an Atlanta He thinks he thinks that's expensive. Um, yeah, he doesn't understand. Mike doesn't understand that. It's usually taunt.

Never mind, we won't get into this too much. But but you know, I think that I think that one of the things that me and Mike that I love about these that that run the Jewels is that they're you know, it's based on our hearts, it's based on our soul and our on our perspectives. And it's also constantly, um, sort of challenging the idea that goodness is proper, that goodness is clean. That goodness is um delivered to you in the way that you would hope that it was

to match up to your sensitive sensibilities. And so being an anti hero gives you a lot of room to have a lot of fun when you're being creative, you know, but also allows you to remain um honorable to the things that you think are important. And I think that that when we when that's that's what we pull off when we do these records, and it's why we're allowed to be funny and stupid when we want to be um. And it's also why we never have any issues changing

that mode and and and be getting serious too. Speaking of the funny stupid anti hero, I think one of my favorite moments on this album is LP, when you declare yourself a rudeness mcgever on Holy Colama Fuck. But but it's also one of my favorite moments because it rhymes with criminal Minder, which is a nod to the Boogie Down productions classic Criminal Minded. And I thought about this album a lot when I was listening to R

t J four. It came out in the year I Ran Contra and I remember at the time care Us one and Scott Rock talking about how with a kid in the South Bronx so crack, he was a criminal, but if the government sold arms to Iran, which was illegal at the time, that was just business as usual. And that's a that's an idea I hear resonate through

your work. Karras One and B. D. P are a huge influence for me because when I was growing up a white kid in Brooklyn, learning about my city in another way through hip hop music really you know, but also learning about world politics through hip hop music. Now, these were these were some of the first people that actually had my ear, you know, like Kari's one had

my fucking ear. So when he talked about Noriega, or when he talked about I Ran Contra, or when he talked about you know, um, like this is this is stuff that actually clicked with me, that actually led me towards a world perspective. So yeah, the criminal Minder was a straight homage to him, because I look at it

the same way I look at George Orwell. Um, I you know, thought crime, you know, like, yes, I am absolutely guilty of thought cry as defined by you know, by Orwell, And so I look at them on the same level I look at cares one in George orwell in terms of the effect that they had on my life in the same regard like um and you know, and also by the way, that song that whole first two verses of me and Mike was a was a was a stylistic reference to one of the greatest duels

of all times, trying the gambler. Yeah to their song broken Language, which which which is uh? Which is just so cool to think because me and Mike, you know, I'm from New York, Mike from Atlanta. But the fact that that was I don't have to explain to Mike. Mike doesn't have to explain to me when we're referencing

those styles. That's the other thing I love Run the Jewels because me and Mike just no styles and we really grew up being influenced by them and listening to them, not only the intellectual stuff but also just the straight rap shit, you know, the swagger ship. So you know, yeah, that was a fun jam to make. That's actually one of my favorites on the album. Let's talk about another standout, just the choruses look at all these slave masters posing

on your dollars and and Mike. There's an episode of your Netflix series Trigger Warning where you pull out a twin dollar bill and you deliver brief history lesson, like talking talking about right Andrew Jackson, And yeah, I feel like this whole concept might have been kicking around for a minute, you know, but the crazy ship is that was for all for all wrote up? Is that? Right? Yeah?

The slave masses all my dollars kind of obviously like time as a kid, you learned about slave, you know what I mean, It's it's right there for you to hear. That's no surprise. But I think that the reoccurrence of capitalism and slavery and stuff is popped up in my music a lot. And it's and that's something I've had to contend with, was being a capitalist and a business person myself. But I think it's something that Run the

Jewels touches on in terms of money. But I think for real though just came with the perfect thread too, Soul. The three verses that we put on there all look at capitalism and money in our relationship with it, but in different ways. Like I learned business through selling drugs. That's how I learned business, you know, when I go business religion of philosophy. I already knew how to make

a dollar growth, you know, from selling drugs. And I've had to contend with the fact that for many years of my life that that that as a child, I made this very adult decision at a time when anybody who had any intelligence would have sold trust because it was too easy not to do. But I have to say to myself, when I'm castigating or or promoting and

pushing things down, am I a hypocrite? And I've had to accept that that there are some things that, Yeah, after you've become an adult, you have your own kids and ship, you don't want to go to the gas stations with fifty little dude selling drusts Africa. But you've been you don't saying, so I've had to I've had to reconcile those things. And a part of this record for me was stylistically doing a distinctly Southern style. But at first I didn't like two lines that I had

in there. It just made it some trap wrap ship and I needed to alter those minds to make it what it was. A philosophical observation of who I am a relation to business. Being a businessman now but that exception coming from selling drugs, um that the fact that marijuana, although still has black men and women and brown people in jail for decades now, now is a legal thing that my white homeboys in Colorado and California participating in

legally and abundantly. So we lost an opportunity to take advantage of alcohol sixty years ago because we would cut out. Let's not let legislation do that to us again. And the fact that a casino owner runs our country, you know, it shows us that, yes, in America, you two can be anything in president included. But it shows you the mentality of the country that we are a criminal country. We promote criminal culture, and we whitewash it or legislated to make it acceptable. But we are no more kind

of country of roads and criminals. And if we don't understand that in our relation to money, there is no road to improvement. Capitalism does prevail in the most vicious and evil way. And capitalism works like you participant in it or a victim of it. And it is obvious at this point by being even a compassionate capitalist, I am a participating I mean this is important and capitalism certainly comes up on this record comes up on pulling the pen as well. And and we can't really talk

about justice of any kind. We certainly can't talk about racial justice if we're not also talking about economic justice. Right, absolutely, first and foremost absolutely absolutely. I just left the meeting with a bunch of black panthers and a bunch of local organizers. And one of the biggest things that was talked about and easy the original guys that were from the late sixties, early seventies, men and women, and the local organizers, men and women, and people from the music industry.

Um and when the number one thing talked about was was economic stability um self alliance injustice in terms of from the government and corporations in terms of helping my community save Alize. So absolutely, And Mike, you've mentioned your business profile you grew in some barbershops I think you were also I've read you also have food trucks restaurants. Is that right? Yeah? Our own uh uh. We're growing a line of barbershops called the Swag Shop. My wife

and I we currently have three. I'm missed. In the next twenty four months is to have ten more, um to serve as a prototype to hopefully grow into a regional and national chain much like Floyd's or Rooty's. Um Tipping I bought a fifty year old restaurant called Bancane Sea Food. Were then partnered with the developer Noel Khalil out of out of Atlanta, who's a businessman to a friend and partner to um to to to roll this

restaurant out um and we started with food trucks. We're about to buy second food trucks so that we have two routes running and I breaking mortar. Business should be up in the next eighteen months, So you know I who definitely I'm a kid from the neighborhood who kind of went back and bed, which is supposed to doing reinvest in the neighborhoods Now, your governor and Georgia pushed for early reopenings. Did you reopen your business? Did not? You didn't know, We did not know. They still close.

Our barbershop just opened UM two weeks ago. The one downtown we open and open with strict regulations. Other two shops remain closed because we we wanted to see what the first dirty days would be like. In our downtown shop, we had no infections. Our customers are healthy. Our barbers are healthy. So we got about maybe two more weeks

before we decided we're gonna open without restaurant. Because we operate in an open outside food truck park area, we've been able to keep our restaurant closed, although we don't have a bricking more restaurant, but people sit down. It's essentially you come in, you order, you take it in, your food, and you take out. So our trucks have been able to run if anyone's interested. By the way, I also owned businesses. It's not as exciting as all that Mike just said, But I got a bar to Delhi.

That's my story, and is Delhi has the best prescribed me in New York. I'm a I'm a cat's customer. But let me tell you, Frankles man best prescribed me in New York. Y'all don't want y'all don't want to play with that. Frankles in Brooklyn, you're are is probably not open as your deli been open. The Delhi has

been open for delivery stuff very carefully. And um, you know, like a lot of like a lot of businesses, um you know, had had to had to adapt, you know, you really, you know, and the bar has been the same. We've experimented with doing some drinks to go and stuff like that, but it's been very difficult, and the truth of the matter is the most important thing has been you know, for me being involved in businesses like that.

The thing that I really drove home to me during this whole thing that we're all experiencing right now is

just how devastated the service community has been. You know, I'm very close all my friends are in that community, and that's been the hardest part making sure that they're okay, and making sure that everybody's like, you know, handled and the same thing as a as a as co business owners with me and Mike, you know, we have an entire crew of people who rely on us, um whose whole year was supposed to be you know, basically working

for us. As we toward you know, you were going to go out on the with rage against the machine, correct, and we still are. It's scheduled to being you know, next summer. But but that and me and micro okay, sitting it out and and clenching our teeth. You know, while while that money isn't being earned, but people who are who work for us, that's really is their their livelihood, you know, and it's and it's not something that they can just take a year off of and not be

affected by, you know. So it's been, it's been. It's been interesting. I don't know about what you guys did with your businesses, whether you went to PPE for paytech protection loans. But but a band can't run the Jewels. Can't exactly do that, can they? You can to some degree, yes, not run the Jewels. Yes you can. You can um

if you've got a payroll. You know, there are things that you can do UM and then and we have managed to get some of that UM going for them, and we've also relied on the kindness of our fans, you know, we've relied on the kindness of our of

the Jewel runners who have been incredibly supportive. We put a T shirt up that fully benefited all of our crew members that you know, breaked in a lot of money that went directly to them to be able to put it, you know, to be able to hold them over while they're waiting to be able to you know, live earn a living. UM. So we've we've we've got a really strong community in that regard and it's been very lucky, like people care and and that's that's a

cool thing. And and and we're definitely gonna honor that by giving the you know, these these great guys you know their jobs is the second that we can and giving a great show. You know. Um, it's one of those things that I know Mike is dealing with it with his businesses as best as he can. And it's just one of those like, you know, things that all of us got hit with and now you know, it's a curveball. It's like we got we did, we tried

like three times. We got shot now. But what we did is the first month we haven't charged our barber's anything. We've managed, um, even in closing, our rents were paid by our online sales and things of that nature. And again, the food truck that'm running is simply pick up and walk away. So in our food truck, soccer die years. She was on CNN yesterday with Rook Baldwin for a black out Tuesday. Heard Kevin Kohey who runs one United Bank, which is a black bank we used, but she was

on there yesterday. She's an amazing woman, former military woman, runs the hell out of our operation. She's as operations manager. But she purposely hires people that are on probation or have been involved with a sentence and are getting out of jail, and we pay them fairly and they get an opportunity to get back in the real world at work, UM,

and they're respected and they're treated well. And I respect her for that because service workers kids, it's a shitty job sometimes when you're dealing with people who are in a Russia have the attitude it's hell to keep firm and keep faithful and be just be nice. We have an amazing crew. These people are um are getting a

second chance at going forward in life. And I wanted to appreciate Chokla for that because we we we were just going to hire people that you know, deserve the job, which could have been anything from twenty year old kids making it through college to you know what I'm saying, um, sixteen year old kid who just wanted a job when you got off got out of school. But she made sure that had people who were interested in taking the whole ride with us. And what she's doing is growing

more operations managers versus just employing people. And I really appreciate her for that. I want to bring back to the music and ask a little bit how your your partnership musically has has changed or grown if it has over the years. You guys have been making music together for seven or eight years now? Ten now? Ten? Can you count rap music? Yeah? Yeah, so ten years now? And gels yeah seven eight and and LP you were you were talking about walking in the Snow. How that

track grew? It sounded like a lot of those production decisions are made face to face. Has that changed over time or was that the method from the start. I'm sort of always making the record in a sense, you know, I'm always making the music. I'm always tweaking in. Um So, the face to face with me and Mike comes when I have something to present him. My greatest thrill is

inspiring my my rap partner. Like that's like and when it comes to when it comes to that first level is making something that I think is beautiful and and something that I think is working. Um but when I but when I get with Mike, the first round is just presenting him with like a menu list of of things that I already know that if if he likes something, I'm I'm good to go. Because I'm inspired by them. I don't I don't play Mike anything that I don't like.

I don't play him anything that I wouldn't wrap on myself. UM, and you know, be you know, and then we whittle it down because because the second wave is about inspiration, the second wave is about what happens, you know, once once this music that I've been working on, um, hits the ears of my partner and hits us together in a room. You know, there's a different dynamic between me and Mike than there is with us alone. And we

don't really do the we don't do these records. Um. When it comes to writing them and and and recording them. We do them in the same room, you know, we do them in the same place. May not always be at the same hour, um, but but we're always there, We're always around each other. And so that energy between me and him is different than what what might happen just alone, if I would just set set alone and

just write some ship to my own music. So that inspiration thing is that really one of the most important parts. You know, you bring the first level of sort of music in and and then once once we kind of go away after we were inspired, I kind of go back in and tinker more and it's and we keep doing that over and over again. Um, that's always been

the method. The truth of the matter is is that at the end of the day, I I feel like it's evolved to the point where I know my partner enough to know that he is in tune with me and to know that if I really think some ship is dope, is a good chance that Mike is gonna think it's it's great too. There's just a trust there with that, and then ultimately you have to really confront it like, Okay, is this do you really feel? You know, if I change some ship or a funk around with it,

I got it. I got I gotta run it past my partner because this is his record too. He has to be able to know that this is wrapping him and he has to feel it like that's the only criteria. Everybody got to feel it. So there have been things that have changed simply just because it was a matter of making sure that everybody was like fully on the same page. For me, I can I can keep going,

I can keep working with ship, you know. So that's been my my joy of being a collaborative partner with Mike and and how it's developed over the years because Mike is I trust our um simpatico. I trust I trust our connection, you know, with music. And I also love that I get to react off of someone else. I love that I get to react off Mike is my audience. Mike is the audience to me and Mike, you brought up rap music and you you've talked in the past about how you you pretty much hustled LP

to produce that whole album. Yeah, it's gonna come on for a track or two, and you were like, no, No, you're doing the whole thing. You're doing the whole To take me back to that moment, what were you hearing in his beats and his tracks that made made you want to hustle this guy for a whole album, I'll

take you back a little further. So after after Monster on Columbia, UM was a Dave McPherson, whoever was running it, taught me about a profit and loss sheet and how even though I hadn't went gold, that I had made the company money and that's why they weren't going to promote it anymore. And get back in the studio and let's get another album going. Out like this sucks, dick. No one ever told me about this part of the game, right, Like, wait a second, it would have been better if you

lost money. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. So I was searching for what I realized that Outcaans had was an amazing machine to put me out had I been ready with my own sound and identity. But what they didn't have was the time to develop another artist, as they were at the biggest moment in their careers. And and nor was it fair to ask that of them? You know what? What what they did not have was someone to help me through finding Mike. It wasn't there

responsibility to have is the responsibility here, dope ship. And with that said L Well before I got to L, I went in and locked in with Ray Murray. And when me and Ray Murray locked in, we did records that felt like, um, what the guy who became half of Run of Jewels would have been doing. And the other half of the records felt um distinctly Southern smooth, slick, and the thing that that that he could do and

that he is a hybrid up. So you're here in just you're hearing a Southern flow over a booming ass grind grind out track, but it's distinctly Southern. So I remember playing those for Puff. I played like six records for Pluck. Three were what would have become the prequel to like A Run of Jewels type m C three were Southern, slick, astatic, and Puff said, I like a both. He said, man, you really do both well. And then I said, but which one you like the most for me?

And he looked at me and he said the hard ship he and and that was it. And now this is six years later, probably I meet L And when Al played the first beat, the second beat, and the third beat, I knew this. I was born to wrap on LP beats. No one was born to wrap on LP beats like me, including LP. Because LP is the greatest rapper producer on Earth. So because he has to be a rapper and producer, that is the only thing that gives me the edge. I am born to rap

on his beat. And then I just then I just had to convince him to do it. And Jason DeMarco was in my co conspirait with James DeMarco. Jason was like, fuck that, we'll find the money. Don't even worry about calling any other producers. This This went exactly as I hoped it did. And then I just started aggravating shot out of L, calling, hey, how are you doing the beautiful la you like a girl? Hey what do you do?

You want to go lunch? And I just started, well, you know, just gnawing that, like, come on, man, we gotta do this. And the next thing, you know, him and Jason worked it out and the rest is history. And I'm glad that l took that chance because he had been burnt by a lot of people. Ell is on ell is an amazing dude, and a lot of times people would take that amazing and they'll use it and they'll abuse it. And I'm not just talking about

the old musicians who I don't know. I people have sucked us over for charities and ship and Ellen steadfastly just been one of the most giving, loving, encouraging, dope human beings. So I was I was like, man, this white boy gonna go to the top. I'm sorry, like we're taking this sight got away man, And here we

go years later, just getting just getting started. I feel like the four record Um Quadruful No was our was our cornerstone, and we have appeerramid to build now and we'll we'll see where we are in fifteen twenty years going into rock and roll Hall of Fame. Well, I mean, I've seen you guys at Madison Square Garden, so I know you can turn it out. I said, I saw you guys open for Jack White, and that was some some ship to see two guys walk on stage and

hold that place the way you guys did. Hell yeah, yeah, moment man, thanks yeah, And you know when the Rage Tour goes, we're gonna be doing that ship uh fun before that show too, because it's as yeah, hell yeah, man, Like Jack White is important, he's big, but I'm still a black guy from Atlanta. So I was like, you know, yeah, well Jack White, like, Yo, this is big. We can't funk up, you can't get too high. For get your works.

We got just they're gonna, they're gonna. We went out and well, that's that's just, that's just because when you're when you're born and raised in New York City, getting New York play, getting a chance to play Madison Square Garden. I mean we literally have a song on our record that's inspired by that getting a chance to play Madison Square garden is is to some degree you feel like, well,

once I do that, I can retire, you know. Yeah, And there have been amazing moments like that for us that really, um let us know that, um, we were on the right track in the sense that like the way that we approached our show and the way that

we gave gave to our show. Um. Once we never changed that, Like even when we were doing small clubs, when we first started and we were doing small clubs and we were doing five hundred people, and sometimes it wasn't five hundred people and sometimes it was a thousand people, but that it was a humble. It was a humble you know. It was a humble you know, underground hip hop groups, touring schedule, you know. But we never acted like we never you know, for us, it was always

just like, well, this is our stage. So we were gonna play this ship like we're run DMC at fresh Fest. We're gonna play this ship like. And and when when it came time for the for for us to actually get those opportunities and people started bringing us out to do stadiums, um and arenas, etcetera, it wasn't much of a transition for us to be able to hold that down because I don't know, I guess some people do

things differently. Maybe some people give us small our show for a smaller venue, But we always gave the biggest show that we could in our heads and every venue, so it didn't really change. When we got into that stage. It was I was like, oh, ship, we can do this. It was you know. We then went on a tour with I mean, of course we've done huge festivals and been in front of hundreds of thousands of people, and but yeah, the Lord Tour was also a big one.

The Lord Tour was interesting because that was our first straight and tour of arenas, and we were the opening directly before a wonderful musician who's absolutely not in our genre, you know, like absolutely didn't share a fan base with us,

so she loved our music. She brought us on, and we knew that that was we knew that that was our sort of tour where we knew every single night it was our job to turn an audience that and sometimes there was a lot of running tools fans, but most for the most part, it was mostly of course Lord fans who didn't really know who we were. Yeah, you had that first wave that was like the first roads would be, but our fans were like in the middle and back. But what was weird is that there

were so many dates right out there. There were there were dates, There were dad daughter dates, and there were just like young guy young girl dates. And when we came out and started smashing, you could see the dads and daughters, you could see the girlfriend and boyfriends. You could see the women turned to the men and look at them like you motherfucker, and the guys are looking like hell fucking yes, like I thought you were doing something for me. You were doing something for you exactly.

That was I must say that that was one of the things because I always watched the crowd. I noticed that and then what you know, it didn't It was even if it was just a couple of dozen or a couple of hundreds some nights, it was enough for me to know that that that that we're going places baby with because I was the only way my sisters were gonna get me to go see fucking let let me see who was my love? ABC is if ice Cube that would be an interesting pairing, I think, Uh,

I know, right. We got to talk about the last track on the album a few words for the firing squad. So this is something, this is, this is intense, something maybe a little different for Run the Jewels LP. You've you've said, this song is for the women in your lives. You you talk about your wife and your sister, Mike, you talk about your mom passing, and and your wife who who says you she needs a husband more than the world needs another martyr. Tell me about putting this

song together. It started just as a sound bed, not very dissimilar from what you hear in the final product, you know, the final product, um, and which is interesting because it mind, I always thought that it would evolve and there would be drums and it would be it would you know, I intended to turn this thing into more of a traditional sort of beat, you know. Um. I thought that there would be there would be a build up, but then it would be we'd be wrapping

over drums. But the strings that we have, um, you know, laid down and the and um just the sort of the the baseline and the energy of it was so invocative and just um that it moved both of us. I think I did if I did my verse first, and you know, a lot of times will run the Jewels. For the most part, you're hearing the unfolding of inspiration as it happens. In other words, if a lot of times, if if Mike is first, that's because Mike had an

idea first, you know, UM, and vice versa. And on this particular one, I had been moved to by this music. I have been sort of just listening to it and it was really it really put me somewhere. UM, and I put my verse down first, and you know the UM and Mike followed and and you know, me and Mike, you know, back to your question about how our our creative relationship has evolved, I think that we have an unspoken ability to pick up on what the other person is feeling and two and and then to come in

with something that compliments. And now it's never about doing. You know, it's not like, oh, I'm gonna do what you did and you know, it's it's more like, I'm gonna honor the spirit of where you are on this and UM, I think, UM, this is a good example of that where it was just really beautifully syncd up where we we knew. Mike knew what I was trying to do with this when I when I laid my my verse down, and my verse was very personal. I think they're both very very personal, both of them. Um,

and they're also defiant and they're also you know. And I think that it's my favorite Run the Jewels song on this record, and maybe one of my favorite Run the Jewels songs ever, because it captures everything that I think really Jamie and Micro about more so than the characters of LP and Killer Mike. UM. And every record has to have that moment where you take your superhero cape off and just and you're just lay bare, like this is really who we are, period. There's no playing

around on that song. It's it's it's it's very genuinely both of us, and it's everything that I love about what we can accomplish together and when we're really in that zone. And you can't do this for every song, but unique because it needs to be special and you need to feel it. It needs to be um, it

needs to be time for you to do this. But laying yourself there and even risking some people not completely getting exactly what you know, I'm talking about things that only my sister and my mother know about, you know, that really know about and referencing those things, but also the fact that there's defiance and that we're relating who we are and what formed us to what our attitude

is now. And I think that when you when you know, when you leave this record, um, hopefully what you feel from that song is almost like an emotional history to qualify and for people to understand why we stand up the way that we do when we stand up, what it is that it means to us, and how the people in our lives are really have influenced us to try and be better man, try and be um honorable man. And Mike, when it came to your verse, when when Jamie laid down his verse and it came to you,

where where was your head? At? My head? It's been fucked up few like we get two of those three years. My mother, you know it's been gone. You know my mother was chilenge. She had so her mom was my mom. And I remember my grandmother died. My grandmother died like eight years ago, and it just fucked me up, Like I didn't even talk for a day. I was just my sister is like, you gotta get over there to get passes. You gotta you know, you gotta Samity the league.

So you know, like you told my grandfather died, you got a day or two the morning. But you know, with that, said my sister, I was so hurt. My sister and wife dressed my grandmother's body, and you know it's just traditional Southern stuff, right, But man, I didn't know. I thought that death had hit me with the hardest Lord could hit me with. You know, my grandmother and my mother. My mother told me, she said, you know, I know you love your grandmother, but when I go,

you donna understand, and that I'm your mother. Yea. So we had this lifelong relationship where she was a big sister as much as a mother, and I saw as a mother. She was my mommy, but I never felt it like I felt it when she died. And we had stayed in Europe to do for Runner Jewels business, and I made the decision to say, but I M just you know, sometimes you just feel like maybe I didn't make the right call, you know. And luckily my man sleepy Head got to the hospital, so I got

a chance to talk to her. You know, place time I think the plane was taken off, I was still on it. But somehow I once spoke you on that all. I was glad it happened, because she was dead by the time I landed. She had transitioned. But I didn't go to therapy afterwards. I didn't talk to any mentors, religious scholars. I literally just went back to work. I remember that knew heard her birthday would have been on

January three. We were in Australia following year, and my wife put together impromptu breakfast and the crew and Hell and his wife and everybody came down and it just made me feel better. But that was just a grief there, and this record gave me an opportunity to just pour and it just you know, I listened to it now and still tier up because you know, my mom was just She was a beautiful, beautiful soul that was tormented out the world. Like people who are addicts are terribly sensitive.

People who are depressed a lot of times spend their time making other people happy, you know what I'm saying. And she did all of that. And the best description is uh ex d boy who turned into a real estate guy who took his mom's with his mom left him after he died in gut A small, little nice fortune for itself out of the cab. He said myself, like, I lost my life, coach when your mom died, and and I said, yeah, man, the coach has gone. And she did that for even though she couldn't be a

mother to me. She was so much of a mother and guy and coach to so many dudes to get them out of the streets and legitimize themselves. And my mother, you know, it was. She could be a hard personality to deal with. So I'm at peace with the fact I wasn't there. I'm at peace with the fact we talked so we knew she I'm at peace that with the fact that I couldn't be there. But I needed to say it in that record gaming opportunity because I wanted to say it. I didn't know how to say

it at that time. I was so angry, you know, just angry. I couldn't even sit on couching and get it out to a therapist. I had to get it out in song. And you know, I was just being myself up physically. We were we were going too hard. So I'm glad the record game the opportunity to pour it out. I'm glad that I made peace with that. There's a shrine for my mother and grandmother up in my house you know, of course my wife and not spiritual leash you on me, your ancestors. So they're they're

trying for the people that have been here before. But my mother's is the one that I talked to daily. I get up every single morning and and and could make sure I communicate, you know, with her. You know what I'm saying, So that ad meant a lot to me. That record steal means and Chris the very last thing on the record. We circle back around to the Yankee and the brave concept. So I need to ask you baseball is starting back up. Are you guys genuinely into

the Yankees and the Braves? Are you looking forward to it? I'm I'm a brave thing. No, although I can show you pictures of me is like a five row over the Yankee had on the in Yankee stadium. Um, but no, no, I don't care. I don't. I don't. I'm sorry. I wish I could. But what I do love about sports is uh and I don't follow it. Is what I mean when I said I don't care, I just don't follow it. I do enjoy sports. Um, we've also lived on a bus that years. So it's hard to watch.

But that's no excuse for That's no excuse for me. I I lost the plot like thirty years ago. But I love the community that it brings. And I do and I and you know, especially if you're in New Yorker, like I've rocked a Yankee hat forever, and I couldn't tell you three people on the current Yankees team, Like I couldn't even tell you just because it's just my

session became music. I never really you know, I never followed it in the same way that a lot of other people do, but I do love the community of it. We felt like that was the right place to put that song, really kind of at the edge of the precipice of like, well, did they get shot? You know, did they die? You know? Did they get killed by the firing squad? And I love that. Um, the record got to end with oh no, they're still alive. And and now here's the loop. It goes right back into

the episode. You know, Um, we have no interest in leaving people down. We have interest in surviving and going forward. And they're and they're being even emotionally when people listen to the record. We just didn't want anybody to We wanted the note to be funny and exciting when we left. You know, um, I just want Freddie Freeman to get cured of COVID and for a ConA and Freeman and

Nick to lead us to another World championship. Because I still love the Atlanta Blanks and I don't like the Mets so often I tipped my head to the Yankees. You gotta understand that women, I was a kid. When I was a kid, we used to play. We used to We used to cut class, drink forties and playing handball. That was my sports. Where we used to go or we used and that was like just an excuse to hang out with your friends and smoke weed and hit

a ball against That was she was fun. And then and then we used to skateboard, and that was another excuse to cut school, and and and then people are like,

oh man, you're not in the sports. It's like, well, first of all, you gotta understand New York City, we didn't have like dope beautiful sports facilities, like you know, we were playing in like public parks and Ship had patchy dirt and ship and glass, and people were leaving cracked stems and ship and like and you know, dogship and like and and then I also never quite understood the joy of being yelled at, like I just don't like. Yo, you don't understand the joy of being yo? That what

are you doing in the group? You know? I'm I'm

doing the yell motherfucker yo. I was on the phone with Matt Ryan and Pat the uh, the Falcons quarterback yesterday, and I was talking about this asshole teacher I had who turned out I loved her because she taught me civics and politics and miss Ellison man Matt after I told he said, Yo, man, my fucking little league coach was that asshole coach box He Matt is one of the greatest quarterbacks in the world right now thanks to that asshole coach, right, I hear you, And you know

what he needed, that tough love. I'm a rapper. You know if you listen to me and l story, you would literally think he was a black kid in the group because I grew up, we would we would all my whole neighborhoods. So the guys sleep from church to Sleep. The episode from my TV show Sleep really is My best friend? Like in terms of that's like a group of best friends that I have from different like from

the streets. Sleep always make sure I was good. We went to we met each other gambling at the bottom of a church. But he played baseball when we were kids, so the whole community would go watch all kids play baseball on Saturdays, is what we did. I grew up in this wildly weird, wholesome like all black enclave of mixed in com stability and l grew up in the grimy streets in New York. It's so if you just if you just told people, yo, there's a black guy,

there's the white guy. One guy grew up and it was never played and the other guy grew up with like baseball leagues. They swear to God they think of no. But you make it sound like I grew up on like like I was grew up on, you know, in the school of hard Nights, and I had it if I had it fine in terms of the facilities, for sure,

for sure, like sports was never a thing. Like it's like, wait a second, so you're saying you want me to sign up to spend my time that's after school for the most part, Like you want me to stay in school, put on some uncomfortable ship, run around in the city area, get yelled at constantly by some dood who I think is an asshole, and then you want me to go. Then you want me to go do a communal shower

with everybody. That's what your plan for me is. And I was like, you know, I'm and and suffice to say, I was out of high school by the age of sixteen. Cool, Yeah, I was done. I was in musical engineering school. Piece. Well, so your tour has been rerouted for next year. Is that what we're thinking? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what it's. I mean that we made. They made Rage made the

official reconfirmation of the of the whole tour starting next year. Yeah, starting in Coachella obviously in April and starting in June with the tour, and that's all. Of course, we're praying, and you know, it's it's whatever's out there that that that happens, and maybe America gets his fucking ship together so we can have some fun again. Yeah. Well here's uh, here's hoping so because we really do want to hear this album live. Uh, And and guys, I really want

to thank you for being here. Thank you so much for joining us man, thank you, thank you, absolutely thank you. Alright, alright later. Inside the Studio is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, check out the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.