Run The Jewels- RTJ3 (2016) Review

Run The Jewels- RTJ3 (2016) Review

By: Ghost Writer

 

I remember reading once somewhere on the Internet that the mighty Chuck D, then retired from Public Enemy, was considering launching a comeback after watching The Prodigy, performing live in England, something happened in Chuck's mind, a new reality obviously opened up in front of him, realizing that some things were left undone for the P.E. and that new digital recording technology could open doors for his once revolutionary hip hop act if they got back to the studio, Chuck always wanted P.E. to be something more than just a hip hop act, and many bands have followed his path since.

But I guess that despite Chuck's good intentions, perhaps the legendary Bomb Squads wasn't a 100% behind D's sonic utopias, I never heard a better record form P.E. besides Fear of a Black Planet, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back or Apocalypse 91...The Enemy Strikes Black,  I wasn't even a bit satisfied by his project named Prophets of Rage with ex Rage Against the Machine, but Chuck's awesome musical vision has slowly materialized thanks to the visionary ambitions of other who took P.E. sonic mantle, people like the always interesting Nine Inch Nails main man Trent Reznor who made an outstanding recording with black poet Saul Williams that could easily rivals any Bomb Squad productions, others like Mark Stewart, the fiery ex singer of The Pop Group also paid attention and integrated those elements in his solo albums, also another great surprise was the emergence of Death Grips, another band who took advantage of the loud, dissonant chaotic approach of the Bomb Squad and made it all its own.

One of the most recent acts living in the dangerous universe created by Public Enemy and the mighty Bomb Squads, and that I consider their righteous heirs are Run the Jewels, the hip hop project of rapper and producer EL-P and rapper Killer Mike, rap and hip hop innovators not afraid to push forwards the genre, charging their attack with outstanding ideas, perfectly placed and exploited on their recent RTJ3, a record that comes perfectly just at the end of a tumultuous year, opener Down is perfect to capture the apparent global mood, creating a dark and glorious groove submerged in deep waves of bass and mind blowing flow from both MC's just before getting into the adrenaline filled Talk to Me, one of the most powerful things you will hear these months, with Mike even referring at times to the mighty P.E., with EL-P taking things even farther with brutal rhymes and hyper tensed beats, while on Legend Has It, the duo trade volatile rhymes with amazing dexterity, accompanied with state of the art musical arrangements, displaying with grace their forward thinking attitude.

Call Ticketron is a gem of tension and high tech hip hop music, with EL-P production input going beyond mere funk and getting immersed in the world of cyberwarfare, futurism and post modernism, making the duo sound way more advanced than most hip hop acts these days, following obviously Chuck D's advice, creating a chaotic, kaleidoscopic vision for hip hop, featuring totally winning tunes thanks to the input by friend Danny Brown on Hey Kids, a song that benefits enormously thanks to Brown unstable and volatile raw rapping.

And for pure musical brilliance, the duo delivers the wonderful Stay Gold, with the music into really interesting places, giving the band a perfect rock bottom for their heavy rhymes to land on, moving forward with the relentless Don't Get Capture, showing more and more sides from this hip hop hydra capable of coming with a nightmarish dystopian atmosphere along maniac flow, that looks simply impossible to catch up with nowadays, perfectly based in the great hip hop vision acts of P.E., N.W.A. and Run DMC, but aiming at giving acts like Nine Inch Nails, Death Grips and Aphex Twin a run for their money, or for their jewels, it will take a nation of millions to hold these guys back!