Run the Jewels is released

Why it matters

Run the Jewels came out June 26, 2013, on Fool's Gold. Run the Jewels is the duo of Killer Mike (the Atlanta MC who had been around since the early 2000s) and El-P (the Brooklyn producer who had been running Definitive Jux through the 2000s). The two had collaborated on Killer Mike's R.A.P. Music in 2012; the chemistry produced this self-titled debut. The album was released for free download. The combination of Killer Mike's political-and-personal direct register with El-P's harsh, electronic, dystopian-industrial production turned out to be one of the most distinctive duo dynamics in 2010s rap. The catalog the two of them have built (Run the Jewels 2 in 2014, RTJ3 in 2016, RTJ4 in 2020) is one of the most consistent extended-collaboration projects in the genre. The self-titled debut is the prototype. You should hear it. The chemistry is the part most rap-duo projects spend years failing to find. Killer Mike and El-P had it on the first project they made together.