Explicit

Run The Jewels

Published Mar 3, 2020, 10:00 AM

Run the Jewels recently took a (smoke) break while working on their fourth album at Shangri-La and taped this podcast with Rick Rubin. Killer Mike and El-P tell Rick about the music that first caught their imaginations as kids, how Run-DMC inspired their philosophy as a group, and who would be the court jester—and who would be a tribe leader—in their post-apocalyptic fantasy world.

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Pushkin. Run the Jewel stormed into hip hop with a big sound in twenty fourteen, and over the last six years they've only turned the energy up. Killer Mike and LP weren't strangers to anyone following hip hop over the last couple of decades. Each made waves in their individual careers prior to forming the group, But there's something irresistible about these two guys from different ends of the hip hop spectrum coming together. Killer Mike's a brash, politically charged rapper from Atlanta with a tight connection to Outcast and the Dungeon family, and LPs, a white New York MC and producer known mostly from the underground. Together they have a combustible energy as they rap about revolution, weed or just boasting about themselves. They've also waded into the world of politics in very meaningful ways. Killer Mike was a surrogate for Bernie Sanders this last election, and a turn burn intro them at Coachella just a few years ago. What I'm trying to say is this is a group that's hard to put in a box. Run the Jewels fourth album comes out soon. They spent some time recording it at Shango Law and during a break For one of those sessions, they caught up with Rick Rubin. This is broken record liner notes for the Digital Age. I'm justin Richmond. Here's one of the jewels. In conversation with Rick Rubin. Killer Mike turns up a little bit late, so LP and Rick got to talk in first because LP was freshly stoned. The conversation starts in an unexpected place, what LP would do during the apocalypse. So, just a moment ago, you were theorizing on if there was an apocalypse? Yeah, yeah, I was. I always I always like worry about like my post apocalyptic career, you know, like what do I have to offer a post apocalyptic society. I don't know if it's much. It's certainly not like a brute straight like, uh, you know, maybe I could, you know, and I don't, you know, I'd probably be just some sort of like subjugated gesture, you know, like Princess Leia chained the jab by the hut, you know, like, uh, but maybe hopefully without a bikini on. And uh. And I'm always, yeah, just entertaining for food, you know what I mean, Like that's just entertaining for your life. And then I'm like, well, but then again. But I'm I'm not really a musician, you know, like I I make music, but like you know, I didn't follow through with the piano lessons. I didn't follow through with the trumpet lessons and the saxophone lessons, all of that shit. I tried it, you know. My father was a jazz piano player. He was he was, that was what he did. And I tried, but I was like, I remember standing in front of the mirror with a saxophone and trying to play along to like run DMC jams, and I was just like I looked at myself one day and I was just like, I can't do this. I have to put this down like I could, Like this is ridiculous. I look stupid and I just can't feel cool doing this, Like I need to learn how to make that. I need to learn how to make this music, like I can't, like I'm not going to make it with a saxophone. You know, are your first memories of music your dad playing, for sure? So would he play in the house all the time? Yeah? We had, you know, they lived in We lived in the West Village until I was until my parents split up, So I was there until about six and it was in the seventies and it was parties, and you know, like seventies parents didn't give a shit. They didn't give a fuck, and I kind of wish it was like that again. But like they would have crazy parties, you know, probably fucking doing cocaine and definitely drinking and smoking weed and crazy, you know, just rambunctious parties and people like Robert Crumb. We would show up to the to the parties and shit. And I was just a little kid, and my father had a piano and a little drum set, grand piano and a drum set and a huge record collection, and he would he would have me sit down and play drums with him. Wally Wally, he played piano for the guests. He's a he's a he's a born entertainer. You know. It was and and and and so it was that which was really interesting because I started to identify it as a phenomenon later where I was like, oh, I get it. Like from a very early age, I had music in my life as something that you participated, not just something that you witness, you know, because of my father and because there was a drum set, and because I would sit on his lap and play piano with him. It was something that you just did. You know. It wasn't like something like mysterious thing that just happened. It was something that that you that I felt comfortable with immediately, you know, because it was just like it didn't feel embarrassing or weird or like a stretch to try and make music. Eventually, when I started to try and make music, felt like a natural extension of what you're supposed to do when you have that in your life. So lucky to have that. It was and and and and and and. The other thing that I learned from him, which was really something that I'd take seriously and think about all the time, was that he you know, I grew up watching him play in restaurants and bars, you know, places where people didn't give a shit that he was playing, places where people were ordering their chicken in the middle of the you know, and he's sitting there playing, is really playing his hard out and singing and like and I would I would have to when I visited him, this is when I would see this, you know, I would go, you know, divorce parents, you'd go visit your your dad, and and I would have he'd have to go do these gigs, and so I'd sit at a restaurant drinking Shirley Temples and watching my dad basically just eat shit. There was something really uncomfortable and even sad about it, Like it's sad to me because I was, like, my dad's up there, these people are early paying attention, and I'm here to watch my dad play It sad for him at all? Do you think? Well, I mean that's kind of what what my point is. I feel like in the moment, it wasn't and in the moment he was. I mean it maybe a little frustrating on occasion, but in the moment he closed his eyes and he'd play piano. He'd like pull a melodica up and do like a solo and he'd be singing, and and I knew that he was happy in that in that moment. And I watched him do this over and over, and I it was always it always hurt my heart a little bit because I was, you know, it's my dad and he's singing, and I want everybody to pay attention or whatever. But he needed it, he needed to do it, and it made him happy. And doing that and being able to sit at the piano was something that it didn't matter that it wasn't a career. It didn't matter that it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't about accolades, or it wasn't really even it was. It was just that it was something he really needed. And I always held that with me because I was like, hey, man, if you can be happy just doing music, like it, really, it's a really good if you can find that. If you can really I'm being happy just doing music, then whatever happens happens with your career, you know what I mean, Like whatever may happen. Um, it would suck to to if your career didn't exist all of a sudden, the music didn't exist, you know. So and that ties back to the apocalypse thing because I'm like, well, after the apocalypse, you know, Michael probably be like a warlord. What I'm shooting for, yeah, or just to upload my brain into a computer. And I'm talking like society's crumbled, there's no more computer. It's just like man, right, so, and I'm just like, well, I always think about, like, well, what are my talents in a post apocalyptics landscape? You know what I mean? Right, Like it's like a court gesture type of thing, like like it's not gonna be muscle, you know what I mean, Like maybe it'll be brains, but probably not, you know what I mean, Like it's probably you know, that's probably a delusion on my behalf and and and so I'm like, damn, I better I better pick up the instruments again quick, because shit is progressing, you know, Like I need to get back on these piano lessons because you know, we might not be able to plug in the fucking drum machine. I guess that's what I'm saying. Rick, you the shit, bro? Yeah, what was it? What did records did your dad listen to? He was a big Fats Waller fan. That was his shit. He just it was. He was jazz head, but he listened a lot of shit. Man. I discovered all I discovered black music through my father. My father was a jazz man and all those records are all all that vinyl and everything. I just was. I would just he would let me go through them, listen, put them on the turntable, listen to it. I kind of had my my free reign over that, like, which is kind of amazing because record collectors would you Usually they'll just smack you away. But my dad was cool about it as long as I didn't fuck it up. And a lot of the first jams I ever sampled or anything when I finally got my hands on a sampler were from his record collection. Straight up. The first thing I ever sampled and looped up with. Uh remember mister Brown? Remember by Marley, mister Brown from from pre pre Whalers, Right, But um, yeah, that was that was beyond the digging for samples. Do you think that hearing jazz at the age that you heard it informed the way you approach music at all? I'm sure it did. I can only assume, so I don't. I couldn't pin it down. No, I couldn't tell you, like exactly what that was, except to say that I just had an inherited appreciation for pretty, really good music. I mean, like, I just feel lucky. I'm sure that's something something you know right now, there's some some child who's who's being exposed by, you know, to the worst music possible by their parents, you know, I feel like that's that's luck of the draw, you know. But I mean, you know, I eventually did a jazz album. I don't know if you know that I did a jazz albu them in like twenty fourteen. It was the first time and last time I'd ever done it, um, which is not to say I wouldn't do it again, but it was they stayed. These people stepped to me to do it. They were trying to mix things up and trying to and um, this guy Matthew Ship and um. And it was William Parker and Matthew Ship and a bunch of sort of free jazz you know, um um sort of titans. And I don't think it was even I did not have the skill set to produce a jazz album. But they were like, no, we just want your version. Yeah, And so that was and it was terrifying, and I was like, I don't know what I'm doing, but I was like, all right, do you like the way it came out? There's moments on it, man, my father, I got my father on it. Beautiful. Yeah, there's moments on it, for sure. And I think that there's a like a they got some like really really seriously good reviews from like high end like jazz critic type shit that I was like, and then there were people, I mean, it was very under I think it was kind of onto the radar, you know. But for my career, it's something that if people have been following me, they know that I did this, and yeah, there's moments that that are that are really cool. I didn't know exactly what to do, so I basically just went in and brought music and just told them to just basically improvise to my music that's truly a jazz spirit. Yeah, I mean they were. They were they're anarchists, you know, the the like truly anarchists, Like all those guys are as learned and as capable of like form and like they're they're as as the highest level musicians. But they rejected it years ago because they didn't think it was the It was the it was the true spirit of jazz. So they were like, no, we're gonna get in a room and we're gonna we're gonna sort of spontaneously together create something, and we're gonna move off each other. And that's the free jazz movement. And so I was like, what do you do with a bunch of people who are already just kind of like no rules? And the only thing I could think of was give them rules. So I was like, all right, well, here's some standards, like how what was it like? Like? What was it really cool? Get you oh man? Like, yeah, well I tricked him into it. That's dope. Did I tell you about I never told you about that. You I want you to tell the world you've told me about it. I liked the story. I tricked my father into being on the record basically because I was like, listen, Dad, I'm doing this record. I have no idea what I'm doing. Can you do me a favor? Can you record just off cassette or whatever? You doing some cool standards, some jazz stunting shit that you that you like, that you think would be cool. And and he did. And one of the songs that he picked was this really depressing fucking song that basically what it's called I think Yesterday when the moon was blue? Do you know that song? And it's it's hearing your strength essentially a strange father singing this song is probably one of the most like, you know, emotional things you can do. And he's he you know, it's just all about regret. Do you have the very of him singing it? By any chance? It's a really good I mean, the original, no good Dad's version my dad's version like the original before. So what I did was I had him do it and then I chopped it up and then I had them play and round it and I made it. I don't know, I don't know. I'd be curious to hear the song. Yeah, I'll play you the version that it ended up being. Uh. The other day, Rick was in and he was like, do you always uh get high when you work? And I was like no, no, no, no. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm not gonna lie, Rick. I want to tell you that the thing that would make you think I'm a good person, shit is dope. Real g ship man, that's beautiful. Dad's voice is great. Really he he brought the house down on my wedding, which is which is coming up on a year. But my dad fucking made everybody in the entire wedding cry once, about three hundred and fifty people. You remember, I Dad, I remember, But I remember the first conversation I had with your dad via going back and forth for email. He let me know how proud he was of you and of us and what it meant to him. And then the first time I met him, I knew he was funny, but I didn't realize how much of a ball breaker he was. I think we were in Boston or something. He was walking down the hall. I'm the only person in the dressing room. He's in front, other people around him. I don't know. He said, oh shit, nobody told me you were black. Almost died laughing and didn't he capped the rest of them. It was not true, but he was no. I know, I knew. I totally know it was not true. I mean, I'm just saying like he's laugh lying. Yeah, just like he doesn't give a shit like I love that. I love that. And he also calls me something by proxy, so shouts out to the t a year, he hits me on the internet for some reason. We did something cool and he lets me know he's proud of this boy. What was the music in your household growing up? Man? Well, I grew up. There's a level past divorced parents, and it's called my grandparents raised me. So we just visited each our parents on the weekends. You know. I had five sisters, three with my dad, two of my mom, the one with two of me and my mom. With my mom, we grew up with her parents' house, so her parents played blues and gospel, and that's what I grew up listening to. My grandmother wasn't a fan of the deaf cha on records, house bringing in and the loudness of them and around vunctiousness. So and we were raising a really Christian household, working class black, working class black people, pretty conservative, you know, and their values and stuff. So like at six o'clock on Fridays, you don't get to play bluesy music. Were on Saturdays, blues music stop. Which music, Yes, it was called blues music. So any secular music ended, so it was gospel, you know what I'm saying. After that, So I'd have to sneak and listen to rap. But I grew up like really loving Buddy Guy, really loving bb King, Muddy Waters, Hollen Wolf, because this is what I played, and you know it's played. My grandmother played like she was a huge BB King fan. You know, she was probably how my daughter looks at Chris Brown. She loved Bobe and my grandfather loved Buddy Guy. And that's how I got into like the Chicago style stuff. So and gospel, a lots of gospel, a lot to gospel because we went to these small Pentecostal churches and the music was great. So I loved that part of the church. Hated going to church the rest of it, yeah, you know what I mean, not that I hated churches as your kid, you know, you're, yeah, your friends are on bikes and yeah, man suited up. And then for the hostel churches to you know, women were were all white and stuff. So it was really and it's long, so four to six hours, you know in churs and forty six hours. No, no, I could be like four to six hours. Like you're you go to church at ten in the morning, you might not come home to say two four o'clock, you know what I'm saying. But in that there's so much music throughout the church. It yeah, let you end up loving the experience once I get there, even though I was resistant, there were just all these incredible musicians. And when you're holding in sepeneal Costele, these their families that preach and that kind of go around doing revivals. That's what they do. So all these talent musicians would just kind of come through. So gospel music Charlie Caesar, James Cleveland, of course, Mahellia jacksonar is incredible steal Yeah, like stell Aretha. We could listen to by technicality because she was gospel and al Green was big. And my mom was sixteen when she had me. Mom married, I have two dads to have a non bio on a bio dad. So my mom married my dad, my non bio dad. I think he had about nineteen years old maybe, so I was about three, maybe going on four. And when she left, you know, she left to take me, and my grandmother was like, naw, y'all go off and be married and learn how to be married and you know, make more children. And so I stayed with my grandmother. My mom left me a huge record collection. Curtis Mayfield, Wow, Harold Melvin and the Blue Nose and see them just like a lot of stack stuff. So when my grandmother would shut the music down the house, meaning you know, no you could play music you had, you couldn't play the radio in the main room. I couldn't bump running down, you know. So I had to go to my room and my mom left me like what they would call components as you put the wax on, and I listened to like all the soul and all the funk, and then my dad my non boy dad she married was a huge Parliament fan P funk and he um. He just man. He was one of the best human beings in where I tell people all the time, like man, his capacity to love a kid biologically it's not his kid, but I fucked up his toy car collection. I scratched records trying to be a DJ, and he was just he was like his his basically his kind of like you. He was always just on some chill shit like you know, I can, I can. I can remember playing Two Live Crew back to back to back, and finally he came in like it took to take. He just took the take. He said, I'm only taking this because you keep rewinding the same part. And he just walked out. And Two Love Crew had that base you know, that was that was They were like Coventiti. He encouraged my music, and I didn't realize into a couple of years ago. I probably got my aesthetic from rock and roll from my biological dad who you know, you know, who was just like, introduced me to rock, let me encourage me to listen to Metallica. Was not surprised that I love Zapplin, Zeppelin and Sabbath and stuff. The Eagles was Big Pink Floyd. He introduced me to um. He liked bun Job. I never did so much, not that I didn't like him, I just he was really into him. It was Dad Rocket. I had a different rock entry as my older sister was most Yeah she's she's a she's a straight teen in the seventies, so but that. But for me it was like young It was like the clash. I mean, it was like Devo, you know, ultimately the police, yeah, you know, And that was my buyer. Dad. He was like he really let me be free. And I realized later Lane for he talks in rhyme, so I probably picked up my ability to put words together easily from him. Like if you asked him, like you know, they called him Big Mike. Of course he's the oldest. I'm I'm nup and my family and my daughter's Mikey. But it'll be like, you know, big one, how are you doing? Man, I'm pretty fast for a squall, you know, we got something well, and it'll just be like, you know, I got somewhere to be, I'm gonna get there for three just and it just effortlessly pours out of him, and I realized that I get older just hanging with my dad, I probably just kind of picked up a knack for it so cool. So you know, my parents, this was pre hip hop. No, yeah, yeah, yeah, you gotta think about it. I'm like, you know, it's just seventy eight, seventy now, hip hop was still something that was my parents then. Like so when you hear Gradmas's Flash, Furies five, Curtis Blow, I remember him coming to the Omni, performing for the Hawks, even Houdini, All that was my parents hype. You know what I'm saying. Like to me, it was it was music that I liked, you know what I'm saying. Like my mom I knew like I loved Donna Summer because she liked Donna Summing right big this because my mom is a free artist partier. But she played like the Furious Five, and she played Gramars Flash Free Slaves, she played Hurtis. I'm like, I like this, it's different from your regular music, but it's still your music. You know. They were still awaying tresh shoes like silk shirts, and it picked everything pivoted to me with Running Jay. When when I when those black sam and when it hit. It was just like, oh, this is the Mothers. Yeah, like exactly, and it was like fat boys running them. It was just like, na, this is not the same. Even though I still love the other acts and stuff, if this felt like mine. We kind of have the spirit and model ourselves after run dm SEE in a real way, like and the one of the one. I mean, we're literally in all black DWN. I'm on stage like two you know, two mcs in the DJ, like we believe because of run DMC that this this, you can rock a fucking stadium with two rappers in the DJ, don't need a fucking band and this and and maybe you can rock it better than a band ever could if you if you get it right, if you're a titan. And but I remember just seeing first of course the music, but also just seeing round DFC and being like they they they're clearly got there. They're currently cooler than most people that DC. They're better dressed yet than most people. It's still better dressed normal ship. And it's like I was like, it made you feel like you could be a part of run DFC. It made you feel like if you tried, yeah, you might, actually they might, you might You could probably do that, Like, yeah, I could probably put on that hat and wear that cool jean jacket and and and those sneakers. I like, you know, I like the way they ended up. I actually just talk to DMC recently in an interview like this, and he's he's great, and he was telling me the way that they ended up dressing like that was because that's the way Ja jam Master J dressed in real life. Yeah, and they saw him. It's like, he is the coolest guy we know. Let's just dress like him. Wed infected us too, you know what I mean. And and this many years later, and like, but it's always something that I keep with me because I feel like that's how I want people who listen to our music to feel. I want them to feel not like that they are gazing at something untouchable, that that they're two. Here are two guys telling you about about them, you know, their lives that you couldn't possibly imagine being a part of it. I like the fact that kids can, you know, I hope that kids can kind of feel like, man, we could be run the jewels, you know what I mean. Like these guys aren't flashy, Like these guys are they're not above us, you know. Um so I don't know. That always stuck with me and that just got me into it. That that was what got me into thinking I could be a rapper, you know, like, oh shit, maybe I can be a rapper. I mean I was rapping a ten. So this is me. I've drug a pair of Adida shell talls without the laces. Fourth, that's amazing, incredible. On field day with my dad, my dad got his feictured. Maybe no shoelaces not on as a child, you're not thinking maybe I walk? Yeah, I might have to be able to walk. We'll be back with more from Run the Jewels after the break, We're back with more from Killer Mike and LP. What was the first home grown hip hop that you heard in Atlanta? Oh, Mojo. Mojo was the first one. Mojo was the first one eighty two eighty three. I think Mojo works for the city or something now and people still showing love. But Mojo again was like my mother's style stuff, you know what I mean. The ship that hit Um later was still more mothers size stuff was Raheim. The dream DJ UM did well. DJ two was Holing else. So then you get Roger I don't know any of these now I got your comment. Then you got shot D, who was a kid who was from Queens or the Bronx. I think Jay might have been from Bronx, moved down south. He was on Luke record shy y s h y Yeah, yeah, okay exactly. So DJ Toomp, who later discovered a guy named Ti and created trap music, was his DJ so too. It's like fifteen sixteen years old. Right after that, you got a guy named Sammy Sam who has a record called Zone three. That's nimaz. It's like school of D's right, it's hardcore, describes Atlanta and tech wood homes because I don't know it and I'd love to let me just pull it up. Trying to find it on YouTube too, Sam here it is, yeah, man, yeah, I'm trying to find a record. He's like boring his zone. That's why on friend zone And that's no Lizzie. If you don't like it, then I tell you catch your Flizie. And it was so it was almost slick rick in it in its lightness and Canadad but dead fucking seriousness of it. And um yeah keylo to Me is the prototype for the create activity that has become Atlanta. You know what I'm saying. And who officially gave us out sound of course was was out outcast, but Sammy sam keylow success and effect the hard boys, UM who does not get enough credit. I want to play this and this is UM get on Mafia, And I can say get on mafia. Was they were? They were post outcast or right along like right after them. But they had a record called Straight from the Deck that I still think it's just one of the greatest raute records in the world. So these guys were from Decatur. And if you know anything about Atlanta, Atlanta is the city of Atlanta. Then you have surrounding areas the cat College Park, Whett County, so Amigos or Winnette County for instance. The cator is m Gucci Man East Atlanta indicate area Bluesy Twiny. You know, so that's Atlanta. Man. We you know, we've been been having fun a long time making dope shit. Atlanta Atlanta's run ship. Yeah, you know what I love about Atlanta. Though it doesn't run shit in the in the way that it's been ran before. It doesn't throw his tail around all others say throwing his tail around and gets biggest doun in the yard. It kills itself every two three years and reinvents itself, Like if you look at it, just means you have a progressive music scene no matter what, on all levels as progressive from from dudes like outcasts to you know to to which goes into rock music, which goes into do you know the rock star, which goes into the snap movement, which shoudy Low does not get his proper credit. Not only was he a rapper, he was a person as a as a drug game feeing that underwrote a genre of music, the whole snapping pops it like he underwrote those groups much like Gucci does. Now. Gucci deserves credit not only as a rapper, but just as like a mogul. He really is propelled a lot of careers. Man. I mean when I first heard Crunk It, it blew my mind. I loved it, loved it. Mike, Mike is a part of one of the seminal crunk hits I ever saw. I ain't never scared you play that to this day, Mike could literally go drop that. But I used to watch your shows and be like, damn this record is that was like one of the records. I was jealous of it. Shit Like, yeah, no, I ain't never scared. We rocked it a couple of times together. Yeah, I really enjoyed getting past that moment. Not like I don't love it, but like, as a musician, I was always one of my markers. I can I give enough records that I don't have to perform. You know what I'm saying, dude, You know how you always have records. You just pray you don't have to perform anymore after a while. Yeah, I'm not mad at it, but I'm just like, no, but you just want to move on, like you're just like it's every cycle of my career. I've been able to shed a couple that. I mean, here's the thing. We're super lucky to be in that position that people consider some jams from different phases of our career. I'd be important for us. But like, I've never liked looking back, I'm all because it's always felt like a waste of time to me. It was always like I was always desperately looking for the next idea. So there does come a point where you have to reconcile with that, Like you have to, you have to you have to become okay with you with even your your your musical output from your past. You know, like you have to make friends with it again, you know, because it is a party. It's the same. It's like it's like the same way. It's like the same thing. I'm learning about what therapy is, in other words, reconciling with who you were so that you can understand who you are now being cool with it, knowing that that was what just happened. It wasn't that, you know, like a real obsession guy like myself when it comes to music, couldn't go back and listen to one of my records and to hear a thousand things that I wished I had done. I do the same. Yeah, I think everybody. I argue with Scarface for an hour, first of all about like he had, Like I couldn't believe he's unsatisfied with his music. That's also the sign of why Scarface has a thirty two year career no wack albums, and style seems to be constantly progressing, because yeah, here we are and we're forty four, Yeah, and we still like we're here tweaking too, Like I literally for a months, just like I hate that verse, came back and tweaked two bars and love that verse because it wasn't about the verse. It was about those bars weren't right. You're not amazing how sometimes small details change your opinion of a whole thing. And also how delicate when you do catch something and then you try to improve upon it, how delicate that balance is. And sometimes you don't even know you breathe on it wrong and it goes away. And you know, anyone who's been making who makes records, nose that. Despite the fact sometimes that you might be able to get a technically better version of something that you did half the time, if not more, you just don't want to trade it for what the original saw, even if there was something that they fucked up. I said a word wrong, but the rest of it is so I can't, I can't. I'm just gonna have to let it be what it is like that Kurt really mean to say a mosquito my libido, I tell you. Dizzy Gillespie. Dizzy Gillespie plays and sack. It was one of the greatest hip hop lines of all time because immediately it wasn't true. Yeah, it was immediately not true. Is her first line but it was flies even as a kid, and because I knew who Disney Gillespie was, there's one on our new record, and it sounded so good I didn't give a fuck to correct. Well, it wasn't. No, I can't tell you whispers. It's an outcash reference. It named the members of Outcast, and it expanded, Oh, he but it's dope and I do not want to change because it's so I was wondering about that. Yeah, no, wonder because it's dope, funny. But Disney Gillespie plays the sack. No, nothing more honest than saying that, because it's just completely alive. It's just has nothing to do with anything. It's like no truth and yeah, you're just and everybody who heard it was like this, yep, he does because because you just said that. Shit so cool. So fucking Disney Gllespie plays the side. When we come back, we'll pick up with a discussion about Killer Mike and l p's lyrics. We're back with Round the Jewels. You've managed to straddle a boundary between talking about serious stuff, talking about political stuff, and also talking about gangster shit and crazy hip hop lyrics. Yeah, how does it feel to to dance between the seriousness of the message and the fun of hip hop and love of hip hop. Man, it's one of the most liberating things to be allowed to do because I loved my public Enemy, I loved my NWA and those extremes, and I love Bismarcki. Yeah you know what I'm saying. And to be able to have a style as gangster rap centered and based heavily revolutionary rap influenced by way ape and park and and morality base in terms of Southern lyricists like terms of face. Being able to be that hybrid, it's been an honor for me because most people you get accepted as the character you portray or the part of the ego you personify. And my main clubs like your shuts out the cubs, like you're in the back back there. But because says Man, He's like he never lets me forget. He's like, hey, you know, you're lucky cuzz because you get to be you, he say, really, people, just so just what I am on record is really me. And that's not saying you know, I'm going out to fight one hundred cops tomorrow, but like I am rebellious by nature, I'm also a fucking total chokester and shit talker. And if we sat in this room long enough, when I'm bored, I'm going to pick up a book and just read until I go to sleep, you know, so I get to be the kid I actually was, Like it was weird for me growing up being a kid understanding the economics of I want to go to the dance, I don't have sneakers sleep. He knows how to make fake drugs. I can go sell them and my uncle my uncle's neighborhood and doing that to get the new nikes and the fake goal tie for the dance, doing knowing how to do that, but still literally loving art, like to the point I go to new museums and and literally loving rap music and under like. So getting a chance to be that on record for me, I appreciate the fans for allowing me too, because I think most human beings are that complex, and we don't allow ourselves to become publicly. We present whoever we want the public to think. We are interpret us ass and we do not show our total or willing to show, and were allowed to do it. I think that also for us, me and Mike, there there are there are only a few advantages to being in your forties and in the current music land, you know, as a rapper. And you know, we don't talk about it that much in Asia is in the big deal, but what it is is a collection of experiences. And we're we're at a point I think when we're with our records and where we are in our heads. When we met up, we just we had the same we had the same perspective, which is, we don't want to do records where we don't have the room to make jokes or we don't have a room to make to cry like, or we don't have the room like like we we we don't want to present ourselves and and we we're we're we just neither of us ever really did where we were there where we chose an idea and decided to make that one idea exactly everything that we're supposed to do. Because if you if you really have to be careful managed when you're coming into this ship, if you're if you are if you're doing that, if you are choosing a thing, just a thing, and you're not punching out the walls like with the you know, by definition, with the variety of the different things that you can do. When you present yourself to people, you you are in very much danger of being a victim of the own thing that you created, the thing that you present. It can come back to destroy you, because if you're if you're an artist, you're going to want to to say other things than you are. Absolutely and that's literally what we do. I mean in terms of as you know, on some human shit like that's that you know, that's the art thing. I think that's the modus operandi for an artist is to be paying attention. And you want to you want to make an artist or you know someone who loves art is trying to make art expresses themself that way. You want to you want to kill their spirit. Just just tell them that they can't change, Tell them they can't change, and and and so there's a delicate balance between knowing what what what's awesome about what you do and what people connected with, but also having no shame about being able to just make like a really stupid joke and then say some feeling good about it and feeling great about it, and and and and and seeing literally absolutely no conflict about doing then something really poignant that is that actually does that meaning and the two are completely related. Why, because that's us, man. We're we're we're serious, we have we have real you know, real terms of real thoughts and and and discussions, uh even even in relation to our music. But we're also like you know, but but comedy and and and and sort of a joyous perspective is just as much of a of a of a joy for us and in what we do, and so we I'm so psyched that I get to be in a situation where we've where it's cool. It's like, it's cool, there's no there's no expectation other than to do it, to make it sound great, to to do it. So that's real. So connects and that you know, and so and and and it's terrifying to me to think that anyone would like stop us or wouldn't have you know, like there wasn't the room, No one's stopping you. Of course, you know, it's a fear. It's not about the world's out to get you. But it's something that I'm really I'm really happy about that. Like when I listen to me and Mike's music, I'm like, I like this because these are people, these are not not an idea different, Yeah, exactly. It's it's one of the things that I see as a limitation for certain artists who are very single focused in one place. After they've made a couple of albums like that, it's like, what's left to do that? Yeah, it's like we've done that. It's like, now, what, Like, why is it interesting to talk about the same subject again for ten more songs? I don't know, it's not you know what I'm saying. It's like, there has to be if to at least be looking at it, even if it's related to the same ideas from different perspectives. I agree, from all around finding what's interesting about it now that wasn't there before when you wrote a song about a similar topic. I remember a song I wish I was a little bit taller, wish I was a foller, wish I had a hour call. That record was so honest to me at a time where everything at the right time. Yeah, everything had been so hard and hardcore that it was the perfect You know, there's insecurity with being a teenage boy, you know what I mean, there's insecurities with being a man here, and that song did it and not in a whiny or what we would be considering hip hop suck away. Like it was just you know, it was very honest like that that that that that that stope to me because if you look at what rules and wrap now, it's the world to that perspective, to to to like, I look at the top guys now, the top guys that have a sensitivity that just wasn't allowed when I was that age, you know what I'm saying, And that's adult thing. Now we're expressed in a different way, like we're giving a sensitivity and then next we might be shooting a dog on a porch, you know, just to make an old lady cry. And in the ridiculous, ridiculous sense, Yeah, we're half real. You know, there's a half of a really human element or what we do that we're and we really aren't a friend to tap into that. But the other half is the Blues brothers fucking stumbling their way across America and getting in the gunfights, you know, and and why just because it's fun us. It's funny friends, you know, it's it's so you know, and and and and I love that, I love I love like the relinquishing of self seriousness, you know, like I don't. I think that you're doomed if you're coming into art thinking that you need to take yourself seriously all the time. Like that's a fucking trap, Like that's you know, like if you can't just pointing yourself and even saying like saying something that you don't believe, you know, saying something hilarious if it and not in the sense of like you know, but just being the ass, like letting yourself for the sake of comedy be a complete fucking asshole, of course, Like that's definitely in our wheelhouse, Like the more asshole is the better. Like, you know, we sit around and we just, you know, like, what's the fucking the Danny Brown versus that verse that record or that that my verse was all about. It was somebody I had watched on some fucking shit that was just shitting on black rappers and athletes, and I'm just like, god damn, like you expect this from Fox News? You expected from it, because I like, you look like my fucking on and uncle, like how are you shiitting on me? And that's where that verse just carved out rectly out of you know what, man, fuck y'all, Fuck this shit, This ain't killing like the activist. This is Michael fuck you render and and it is absolutely ridiculous. That record is an amazing record to Danny and and Pegs. Yeah you had brought him me inesterday. Yeah, yeah, yeah, kicking with us. Yeah. Man, the beat very original beat, Yo, it was. It was very original. It was wildest fucked to figure out that ride. I like figuring out part of the reason I think I proclaimed LP greatest rapper producer in one thing ever, because I see him writing them on the fucking ramps, and I see him developed these beats into something but a lot of times to beat saying an easy ride. Now the ride is doping us there, but we have to find it. And you seems at this point you come back maybe three people are like, god, damn, that ain't it. We got a sun about it on, Like, but that beat challenged me to find a ride that I loved. I came out of that motherfucker feeling like a better rapper, Like, yeah, you know that's all y'all going on. I think you told me the sample. Yeah. The beauty of the challenge when it forces you to go outside of your normal patterns. Yes, yes, because and there's only an elite group of motherfuckers that can actually write, you know, give you know that that like can find the pocket, you know, like because I was listening to it and yeah, I had to be like you heard Danny's Pocket and yeah, anyway, it's like, yeah, please, I want to tell kids too, man, you know shit, fuck music reviewers and who wrote what? Listen to the song yourself and see what you think. I saw a review of this record. It's not our record. I don't particularly but besides thinking, I got a dope verse, I don't have. I don't have much skin in the game. But I saw a review give a lazy review on it, like and I could and I went to to rap lyrics or quote rap Coote or whatever, and I realized he had literally just read the lyrics maybe listen to the song once and only highlighted really what was in the bars. I was just like, how lazy? And like, what tripped me out about that punk ass reviewer is he failed to acknowledge Danny's mister Servon shout out, which in the no lining sectrum, if you really the Nolan guy, you that's like to me, that's that rap nerd shit. I'm coming to you, listening to you because I trust your punk ass and you not even rap nerd enough to know, mister Servall. And then from a street perspective, the most honest thing said on that record was when Danny said he had to act like a thing to get out of getting the rest. I'm just like this niggas sings. You know what I'm saying, And that's what you lose. When when Al hit the fucking triple Lindsay flipp reference to Dad and the mom is just like, how the fuck can you listen to that shit? And I'd be like, oh man, I'm a sucking minds blown, you know what I mean? And then I think, and the flow are so interesting over the beat it's jazz exactly, exactly free exactly, it's free style. That was what the beat to the beat made us find a pocket, and everyone found a different pocket. It's three different styles. With each verse you hear the beating a whole different and that's that's that's to me, that's what's lost in the and the now of like man, it was so new and not on some super nostalgic it was all better than it was just so new that it was fleeting. You didn't know if it be around much longer, so you took all of it serious, like not to the point of art, just to like, let me learn this ship. Let me learn because I don't know how like I remember, and I know, you know, they said this ship's not gonna be around the former and the years and then just making music. How many years did I have to get the same lecture from people, from old people telling me every fucking time I fucking anyone found out that I was doing this shit. It through my youth. You had to endure the lecture. And that was that some guy who knew, some older dude who just knew that it was just a waste of time. Trust me, kish and disco, it's disc it's disco. I saw it, I lived through it, you know what I mean. And you're just like, no, we even knew then. We were like, you're wrong, you're wrong. It's a new form of fucking music. I remember being told it wasn't even music because we talked. Of course they still say that shit. It's like God, still try and say that shit. And now yea, and discoes not even gone for that man's everywhere right how to fuck you not. Jason Donald sum on the Sunday Smoking with your Wife Man. You know. Thanks to LP and Killer Mike for taking time away from making their new record to talk to Rick. Make sure to check for it once it drops wherever you get your music. You can hear more of their work together as One of the Jewels and their solo stuff by listening to our playlist for this episode at Broken Record Podcast. Broken Record is produced with help from Jason Gambrel, mil Lobelle, and Leah Rose for Pushkin Industries. Our theme music is by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks for listening.

Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

From Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam, and Justin Richmond. The musicians you love talk a 
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