The epic guest verse on Run The Jewels hit that was recorded in one take
The rap duo Run The Jewels is arguably one of the best duos in hip-hop. Along with duos such as Kriss Kross and Rae Sremmurd, Run The Jewels have found their way into the hip-hop history books and, unlike certain acts, are still going to this day.
Hailing from two different cities, the two members of Run The Jewels created a fantastic melting pot of sounds. Brooklyn rapper and producer El-P and Atlanta rapper Killer Mike married the East Coast and Dirty South cultures and have been nothing but praised since their inception. With the duo’s formation beginning around 2011, El-P and Killer Mike had individually been around for a long time.
El-P had been musically active since the early 1990s and was part of the Brooklyn trio Company Flow. Killer Mike had also been musically active since the 1990s and found success in 1995 by attending the same school as Big Boi of Outkast. He went on to be featured on their debut album, Stankonia. The rapper also featured on their 2001 single, ‘The Whole World,’ which went on to win a Grammy award.
That said, as part of Run The Jewels, Killer Mike and El-P have released amazing projects. From their debut self-titled album to their 2020 project RTJ4, the pair has some fantastic stories about the creation of their projects. In an interview about their 2012 album, Run The Jewels 2, El-P admitted that one guest verse from the body of work was a one-take.
Opening up about the rap by Rage Against The Machine’s Zack de la Rocha, El-P unveiled, “I bumped into Zack on the way to the studio while getting a juice. Two days later he was in the studio with us recording. It was one take. No bulls–t.”
Zack de la Rocha appears on the track, ‘Close Your Eyes (And Count To Fuck)’. The single from Run The Jewels 2, is arguably one of Run The Jewels’ best and most popular tracks. With a thumping 808 that pumps throughout the track and a vocal chop that bounces for the entirety of the track, screaming “running”, the song is immensely raw.
Zack de La Rocha’s appearance felt strange to many. However, El-P once told Entertainment Weekly magazine that the vocalist was “the unofficial third member of Run the Jewels” adding, “I wouldn’t be surprised if we fucked around and dropped a Run de la Rocha record at some point.”
The music video for ‘Close Your Eyes (And Count To Fuck) is probably the most well-directed and impactful video hip-hop has seen in a long time. Neither EI-P nor Killer Mike feature in the music video, which depicts a fight between a white police officer and a black civilian that gets out of hand and is violent. The director, AG Rojas, wanted to show how murder is often the culmination of “clumsy, raw emotions.”