The Billboard 200 matter to some (i.e. major label artists) but most independent artists could care less about it. Over the past few days, we were blessed with the early release of Run The Jewels highly anticipated fourth studio album, RTJ4. The album arrived in the wake of protests across the country in support of Black Lives Matter, so it was either bound to get overshadowed by the headlines or bring solace to fans who are participating in the protests.

None of this actually matters to Killer Mike and El-P who both decided to give the album away for free with an option to purchase. Per Billboard, even with two tracking days, RTJ4 is by far Run The Jewels' most commercially successful to date. In a few days, it moved 38K album-equivalent units, propelling it to number 10 on the Billboard 200. This is now their first album to ever enter the top 10 on the chart.

The album benefitted from merch bundles with 30K of the 38K units coming from pure sales. Though it was available for free, they did encourage listeners to donate. After two days, they generated $160K in charitable donations for National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Program and several other organizations. 

Surely, this album couldn't have come at a better time. What's your favorite track off of the project? Sound off below. 

With protests against police brutality and systemic racism ongoing throughout the United States and Canada, many rappers have come forward in solidarity with the revolutionary movement. The legendary rapper and orator Killer Mike recently caught attention with a powerful speech in Atlanta, where he implored those hurting "to strategize, to organize, and to properly mobilize.” Mike's voice continues to resonate now more than ever, and it's likely he'll expand on some of his positions on the upcoming Run The Jewels 4 album.

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Following the announcement that it will arrive this Friday free of charge, an initiative announced by El-P yesterday, the rapper slash producer took to Instagram to preview one of the album's upcoming tracks "A Few Words For The Firing Squad." Premiering the song in full, the track features a heavy-build up accentuated by frantic bursts of brass.

"It's crippling, make you want lean on a cup of promethazine, but my queen say she need a king, not another junkie, flunky rapper fiend," raps Mike, drawn between love and duty. "Friends tell her he could be another Malcom, he could be another Martin / she told her partner 'I need a husband more than the world need another martyr.'" El matches Mike's energy, offering some words of wisdom of his own. "When your surrounded by the fog, treading water in the ice-cold dark," he spits. "When they got you you feeling like a fox running from another pack a dogs / put the pistol and the fist up in the air, we are there, swear to God." 

Check out the track below, and look for Run The Jewels 4 to arrive in full this Friday. 

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Run The Jewels have consistently been fighting against the system through their music — even when Killer Mike and El-P work as solo artists. Following the protests going on across America against the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, Run The Jewels have announced that the release of their fourth LP will be available for free upon its release.

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In a statement issued to Instagram, El-P explained that he and Killer Mike are offering this project for free in support of the protests. “I don’t have shit left to say right now that me and my brother @killermike don’t express on this album so i’m not saying shit anymore til then. on it is all our joy, humor, friendship and rage. we got bangers to help you lose yourself and smile and we got shit that comes from the deepest places in our hearts and when it drops on friday it will not only be for sale but it will be made available for FREE for ANYONE who wants some music,” he explained. “for me this is the only way i really know how to contribute to the human struggle and experience beyond just trying to be kind and aware and grow. it’s the only weapon i’m truly trained in and i’m grateful to have it. so no more talk from me until the music drops . i love y’all be safe don’t fall for the fuck shit and protect each other and your spirits from those that would divide and hurt you. this ain’t an advertisement this is just me saying i love you and i hope this music does something for you in these fucked up times.”

The announcement arrives after Killer Mike spoke about the current situation in Atlanta last night alongside T.I. The two rappers urged their communities to stop looting and rioting, though they did acknowledge that they understood the pain that many people across the country are feeling.

Check out El-P’s post below. 

Though the streaming era has made countless albums available at the drop of a hat, there remain many classics and gems that have yet to make the transition. For the longest time, El-P‘s solo catalog has been inaccessible in that regard, including his debut album Fantastic Damage. Hailed as a classic by those familiar with underground hip-hop, the project marked El’s first release following the breakup of his former group Company Flow. Arriving eighteen years ago to this date, Fantastic Damage was an instant showcase of El’s immense talents, earning itself instant critical acclaim in the process. 

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And while there are many who have kept entertained through El’s Run The Jewels rebrand, there remain those who cover the good old days when he was running the underground scene. Now, after a lengthy waiting period, Fantastic Damage has officially made the transition to streaming services. Should you be interested in revisiting the science fiction inspired project, which spawned tracks like “Stepfather Factory” and “Deep Space 9mm,” be sure to check it out on your streaming service of choice.

In other El-P related news, he recently confirmed that Run The Jewels 4 will be dropping on June 5th, featuring guest appearances from DJ Premier, Pharrell Williams, Josh Homme of Queens Of The Stone Age, 2 Chainz, and more. It’s a good time to be a fan of El Producto.

For anyone who's been waiting on the return of Killer Mike and El-P's Run The Jewels 4, we have some good news for you. El-P hit the Twittersphere earlier today announcing that the hip-hop duo's fourth collaborative album will be arriving next month. The rapper/producer extraordinaire shared a pre-order link that went live at noon but immediately shut down the Run The Jewels website. Instead, El-P followed with another tweet that read, "RTJ4 DROPPING IN 24 DAYS." June 5th, y'all. Get ready.

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Along with a pre-order link and a release date, El-P also shared the cover art for the project that features the fist and gun hand logo in gold and black with a pink background. The tracklist was also shared featuring an eclectic array of collaborators. Greg Nice and DJ Premier, of course, appeared on the previously released track, "Ooh La La." Aside from those two, 2 Chainz, Pharrell Williams, Zack De La Rocha, Josh Homme of Queens Of The Stone Age, and Mavis Staples make appearances on the album.

Keep your eyes peeled for RTJ4 and peep the tracklist and album art below.

1. Yankee And The Brave (Ep. 4)
2. Ooh La LA ft. Greg Nice and DJ Premier
3. Out of Sight ft. 2 Chainz
4. Holy Calamafuck
5. Goonies vs. E.T.
6. Walking In The Snow
7. Ju$t ft. Pharrell Williams and Zack De La Rocha
8. Never Look Back
9. The Ground Below
10. Pulling The Pin ft. Mavis Staples & Josh Homme
11. A Few Word For The Firing Squad

As the quarantine continues to run its course, so too does it impact the artists that keep us entertained. Unfortunately, such has indeed proven to be the case for Run The Jewels. Having already completed their long-awaited fourth album, the aptly-titled RTJ4, it seemed like only a matter of time before we’d be getting our hands on the project. Yet now that coronavirus has gone and flipped the table, all bets are — for the time being at least — off.

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That doesn’t mean its creators can’t come through with some much-appreciated details in the meantime. Today, Killer Mike and El P hit up Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 radio show to open up about the current state of the album. “It’s just a pain in the ass because me and Mike really want to get this record to the people and so we’re working our asses off to make sure that that happens as soon as we possibly can,” says El, prompting Mike to offer a creative suggestion. “We’re going to come to everybody’s door like the census.” “In hazmat suits,” adds El — safety first.

“Relentless, if that’s what you want to hear,” says Mike, describing the sound of the record, as well as its creative process. d. We relentlessly pushed through because there were songs where we both had different verses. We’d go for a month, meet back up and be like, “You know what? I don’t like my last eight bars. I’m going back in to do it.'” El proceeds to lay out a key distinction between RTJ4 and its predecessor. “We weren’t in the same mind frame as we were in [Run the Jewels 3],” he teases. “This one we were in a fiery place.”

Keep an eye out for more news on Run The Jewel’s upcoming album the minute it surfaces, and be sure to check out the latest single “Ooh La La.” Are you excited for this one?

[ Apple Music]

This Valentine’s Day, Killer Mike and El-P made an announcement that shocked the world: Run The Jewels 4 has been completed. In a subsequent interview, El dished a few more details about the album’s direction, indicating that the fourth installment will clock in at a reasonable eleven tracks. Billing the project as “the hardest” of the batch, El revealed that he and Mike channeled EPMD’s triumphant four-album run during the creation process. Now, with a more detailed announcement feeling inevitable, Killer Mike and El Producto have taken a moment to chop it up on Rick Rubin and Malcolm Gladwell’s s Broken Record podcast.

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While the conversation is rather casual, more a discussion among friends than an album-centric info dump, it provides an interesting insight into the creative process of two elite emcees. “You have to become okay with the musical output from your past,” explains El, likening the process with therapy. “It’s a part of you. Reconciling with who you were so you can understand who you are now. Being cool with it…A real obsession guy like myself can listen to one of my records and hear a thousand things I wish I had done.” Mike agrees, mentioning that he argued with Scarface for an hour about that same topic. “I can’t believe he was unsatisfied with his music,” marvels Mike. “That’s probably why he has a thirty-two year career and no wack albums.” 

Be sure to check out the full conversation below, especially if you’re a fan of the RTJ movement. Seeing as Mike and El have already blessed us with three hard-hitting albums and have yet to fumble the bag, it’s fair to deem them both masters of the craft. Look no further than the latest episode of Broken Record for proof of that very fact.  

With Run The Jewels 4 allegedly complete, El-P compared the group’s latest work to one of hip-hop’s most prominent collectives in EPMD during a recent interview. The 44-year-old Brooklyn-bred emcee took his talents to Vinyl Me Please‘s Good Convo podcast to discuss of a plethora of topics, but it wasn’t until the end of the podcast that host Michael Penn II decided to ask some questions about Run The Jewel’s forthcoming project, Run The Jewels 4.  

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El-P was gracious enough to drop some gems on the podcast in regards to his and Killer Mike‘s upcoming musical offering regarding the album’s length, guest features, and a hip-hop comparison that is a tough pair of shoes to fill. According to El-P, the album will be a total of eleven tracks that will run approximately 38 minutes long. The “3 Tearz” rapper then goes on to state that the LP features “guest appearances that you wouldn’t necessarily expect, as well.” 

El-P continued saying, “(This album is) the hardest sh*t we’ve ever done — front to back, punch in the face. Absolute mayhem from the moment it starts.”

The original Company Flow member then went on to state that the legendary hip-hop duo of Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith, AKA EPMD, inspired the efforts of their latest project proclaiming:

“We set out to do at a bare minimum what EPMD did for us… They basically have a legendary run of four records… They had four back-to-back the hardest, funniest, dopest records. It’s very rare to get four… I’ll put it to you this way: This should be the record that Run The Jewels falls off. This is not the record that Run The Jewels falls off.”

EPMD’s first four albums; Strictly Business (1988), Unfinished Business (1989), Business As Usual (1990), and Business Never Personal (1992) helped define and shape an era of hip-hop that inspired the Golden age of the world’s most influential music today. 

There isn’t an official release date for Run The Jewels 4 as of yet, but with the album supposedly complete we should expect it to arrive in the coming months. Listen to El-P’s full interview on the Good Convo podcast in the streaming link provided below.

For years, Detox became something of a running punchline in hip-hop circles. The album has cropped up as both interview fodder and a lyrical reference for everyone from Eminem to ScHoolboy Q, the latter of whom once claimed the record to be “like a mix away” on “There He Go.” Over a decade in the making, the concluding entry in the trilogy that began all the way back in 1992 took on a near-mythical condition of elusiveness. Halted by Dre’s unquenchable perfectionism, the ticking of the clock plays no role in the Aftermath mastermind’s creative process and his former protégé Snoop Dogg infamously dropped “five albums from the day that Detox was supposed to come out, till the day it didn’t.”

Pursued by a dissatisfaction that he just couldn’t quell, Dre eventually downed tools on this potentially world-altering record and put it behind him. When he did re-emerge in 2016, he did so on Compton, a sprawling love letter to his past that was inspired by cinematically revisiting it through the NWA biopic. Released just 6 days after it was announced, it’s comparatively painless road to completion speaks to one of the eternal truths of the industry. Sometimes, what the public are anticipating and what you want to deliver just doesn’t sync up.

Anything but an isolated incident, Dre relinquishing an album to the ether puts the legendary producer in elite company. So, without further ado, here’s ten more sought-after records that may exist in the archives or as a batch of rough mixes, but have never— and likely will never— see the light of day.

Kanye’s gallery of shelved work

Kanye West attends an event in NYC, 2019 – Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

Aside from Dre himself, no one has become more of a byword for the interchangeability of creative focus and taste than Mr. Kanye West. Seemingly working with the aforementioned Compton icon on the follow-up to Jesus Is Kingas we speak, those familiar with Kanye’s tendency to make sweeping declarations will only permit themselves to feel a shred of excitement at most. As much phenomenal, paradigm-shifting music as Ye has delivered up to this point, there’s a similar amount of music that’s been resigned to a theoretical discography.

Between two separate iterations of Good Ass Job including one that was meant to be a straightforward sequel to Graduation, his decision to embrace his “super nerd vibe” with the proposed TLOPfollow-up TurboGrafx16, announcing So Help Me God/Swish in 2015 and getting its artwork inked on his skin all the way to a confirming a proposed collab record with Drake, Ye is the master of the misdirect at this stage.

Whether he’s purposefully throwing fans off the scent or he’s simply refining projects from initial concepts to something more robust, Kanye’s eagerness to pledge that something is coming, only for the pipeline to remain barren, has forever altered how we view his words.

Lil Wayne and Drake’s collaborative album

The master and the heir apparent of Young Money, Drizzy and Tunechi have never failed to deliver across the course of 17 cuts as a duo. Last teaming up on 2017’s Dedication 6 for a “Family Feud” remix, hearing the two reconvene after several years of musical estrangement was like catching up with an old friend. The signature sound of YMCMB’s golden era, the two trading bars is always a recipe for greatness and as such, conversation abounded about “young angel & young lion” finally harnessing that chemistry they established way back on So Far Gone’s “Ignant Shit” into a full project.

Yet as he revealed to XXL in 2011, the arrival of Watch The Throne compelled the duo to put the plans on the backburner for the foreseeable.

“Me and Wayne scrapped the idea of a collaboration album. We just agreed that it would be looked upon as… this competition,” he conceded.  “I feel like it would get caught in this whirlwind of hype. [Wayne] agreed. We just said, ‘If we do it, we’ll do it down the line. But right now is not the time.’”

Nine years on, we’re no further ahead on getting it on the docket in any official capacity but Weezy insists that “We still text and send songs here and there, change a verse because he killed me or change a verse ‘cuz I killed him.”

D’angelo – James River

By the time that Voodoo dropped in 2000, Richmond, Virginia’s very own R&B pioneer D’Angelo had the world on tenterhooks for his next move. Yet for all that there was five years between Brown Sugar and the platinum-selling sophomore project, no one would’ve expected that there’d be so many bumps in the road on the way to an eventual follow-up. Although we’d get The Vanguard-assisted Black Messiah 14 agonizing years later, there is a missing link in the chain that’s still shrouded in a cloud of internal turmoil and darkness to this day. Taking on numerous shapes over the years, updates on an album entitled James River were kept all but non-existent from D’Angelo himself, leaving collaborator and The Roots’ stalwart Questlove to occasionally chime in with a snippet of information. After he’d leaked an acoustic version of what’d eventually become “Really Love” to Australia’s Triple J in 2004 and damaged their relationship in the process, Quest then proclaimed that James River was “97% done” in 2011.

Although his eventual return was seminal in itself, there’s always going to be part of us that wants to hear some other excerpts from the reported “five albums worth” of material that he’d recorded in that time.

Outkast – 10 The Hard Way

OutKast, 2000 – Scott Gries/ImageDirect/Getty Images

Said to be helmed in its entirety by their trusted advisors Organized Noize, 10 The Hard Way is known among Outkast fans as the grand send-off that never was. Reportedly constructed alongside Idlewild and its subsequent soundtrack, this record was meant to escort 3 Stacks and Big Boi back from the prohibition-era realm of their cinematic endeavours and into the heat of the Player’s Ball. In what makes for truly dismaying reading now that we know how history has panned out, a 2006 interview with Sleepy Brown saw him outline exactly where the record was headed.

“That’s supposed to be the last OutKast album”, he asserted. “Hard tracks, rap tracks. They was all for it, we’ve made plenty of beats for it, then, all of a sudden, he [Benjamin] don’t wanna do it no more. I just wish he’d make the decision,” he sighs. “Just say it! Are you done, or are you done? Nobody’s gonna be mad, but they’ll be mad if you keep doin’ this to ’em!”

Eminem – The Funeral

Although “it’s your funeral” may have been the gripping tagline of this year’s Music To Be Murdered By, the graveside ceremony we’re referring to dates all the way back to 2006. Becoming the stuff of forum legend, The Funeral was the proposed next entry in Em’s catalogue after Encore and came with a fleshed-out premise to boot. Slated to be a double disc project, the album’s proposed title wasn’t a throwaway remark, it spoke to the concept of laying his previous aliases to rest.

“I’m not really on any of the tracks named The Funeral”, he told BET. “Those tracks just signify the death of each persona.” The Eminem fansite states that the album was intended to contain three sections, each divided by one The Funeral track. Bizarre was set to rap about the Slim Shady persona, Dr. Dre was going to handle the Marshall Mathers persona, while Obie Trice was going to rap about the Eminem persona. The final track which was reportedly title “Where I’m Standing” was meant to showcase Eminem’s “rebirth.”

Enticing as that sounds, it looks like it’ll never see the light of day, unless he chooses to revive the structure for one grand swansong somewhere along the line.

J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar’s collaborative album

J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar performing during Cole’s tour, 2014 – Taylor Hill/Getty Images

Every generation has one of those great “what if’s” that arise from contemplating what would happen if two or more legendary artists teamed up for one full-length project together. The previous era had the “Murder Inc” supergroup of Jay Z, DMX and Ja Rule that failed to materialize and we have the Cole and K. Dot album that’s been hinted at for nearly five years now.

Regularly stoked by their teams either to keep interest alive or, in some cases, seemingly for their own amusement, they first encountered one another on Born Sinner’s “Forbidden Fruit” before later remixing one another’s tracks on “Black Friday” of 2015.

With Kendrick and Cole both claiming that they’d love to do it on numerous occasions and Lamar even cropping up in an uncredited capacity on ROTD3, the last real correspondence we had on the matter saw Dreamville’s leader state that “We just did a few songs. Like, we did a bunch of ideas. Put it like that. It was nothing like, you wouldn’t call it an album… Not because it’s never gonna happen. Just because, like… it’s not right now. I don’t like teasing or playing the game ’cause this has been going on for a minute.”

Whatever the case, it’s hard to imagine any record stopping hip-hop in its tracks quite like Kendrick crossing over to Cole World.

Slaughterhouse – Glass House

Despite having all the lyrical talent in the world, there was something about the dynamic at the heart of Slaughterhouse that never enabled them to live up to their potential. Across their 2009 independent debut to the Shady-backed Welcome To Our House, clashing egos, beat selection and apparent management interference prevented Royce, King Crooked, Joell and Joe Budden from creating the sacred text of rhyming that they, by all rights, should’ve delivered. Said to feature an equivalent “Slaughterhouse of producers” that included Just Blaze, J.U.S.T.I.C.E League, Illmind and others, Royce may be adamant that they didn’t finish their last album Glass House but to Crook’s mind, they’re “robbing the culture” by not releasing it.

“It came out incredible,” he told Talib Kweli’s The People’s Party podcast. “I wanted it to see the light of day. For Budden’s part, he’s happy to leak the album but who knows whether that’ll ever occur.

Black Thought & Danger Mouse – Dangerous Thoughts

Sometimes, a producer and MC combo is enough to set your imagination ablaze. Danger Mouse’s hip-hop pedigree is well established, from Gnarls Barkley to DANGERDOOM. Two years after he’d meticulously spliced Jay-Z and The Beatles together for The Grey Album, Danger was granted the opportunity to work with another one of hip-hop’s most astounding pens, The Roots’ Black Thought. Said to be “midway” to completion back in 2006, the Philly icon said later in the year that he “would call it a meeting of the minds. It would not be like me, Black Thought from the Roots, and Danger Mouse the producer — it’s us taking on two personas.”

With Black finally releasing solo material with Streams Of Thought Vol 1 & 2, let’s hope that they can finally build on all that chemistry they’d exhibited during the rapper’s appearance on Dangerdoom’s previously unreleased jam “Mad Nice.”

Zack De La Rocha’s solo album

Throughout his career, Rage Against The Machine’s Zach De La Rocha has resembled less of an artist and more of a force of nature. Initially leaving the rap-rock group that’d made his name in 2000 as he felt that it had “undermined our artistic and political ideal,” the rumour mill about a solo project from Zack essentially started there and then. Amid collaborating with DJ Shadow, KRS-ONE and others, it only seemed like a matter of time until a fiery album of political vitriol that embraced his hip-hop roots would arrive. Over the next decade and a half, Zach would be pictured in the studio with Nas, undertake some sessions with Questlove and even deliver an incendiary verse on Run The Jewels’ “Close Your Eyes (And Count To Fuck.)”  

Then, in 2017, EL-P incited chaos on social media when he declared that  “The Zack de la Rocha album is happening in 2017. And yes this is new material made this year and yes there is more where that came from. And that’s all the info I’m authorized to give out. Been keeping my mouth shut about my work with Zack since January when we did it. It hurt. Now I’ll commence keeping my mouth shut about the rest.” To date, all that’s emerged is the phenomenal El-P produced “Digging For Windows” but we’d be eager to hear more.

Nas & AZ – The Essence/The Firm Sequel

Nas & AZ out in NYC, 2019 – Johnny Nunez/WireImage/Getty Images

Since Nasir Jones came to the fore on the all-time great debut Illmatic, no one has been able to meld so neatly with his style in the vein that AZ can. Delivering one of the showstopping verses of the album— and in this writer’s opinion, all-time— on “Life’s A Bitch,” the pair have kept that shared rhythm alive over the years on tracks such as “Serious,” “The Flyest” and “The Essence” not to mention during their time in Dr. Dre’s The Firm supergroup. Speaking of that last track from Aziatic, its title bears the same name as the proposed collaborative album between the two that, for one reason or another, has never emerged. Once again consigned to the stuff of forum speculation, what AZ has been more forthcoming about is the prospect of another record alongside Dre, Foxy Brown and Nature under the mafioso-rap banner of The Firm. Speaking to The Boombox in 2012, the eternally underrated New York MC claimed that the only thing holding them back is scheduling.

“I just spoke to Foxy like two to three months ago. Everybody’s cool. We all reach out, there’s no bad blood. We all grown and what not, so it’s cool. Nas’ album [Life Is Good], just came out and he’s doing him. I’m trying to wrap up my Doe or Die 2 album, so I’m working. So hopefully, we can make it happen again — one more time. But if not, it was a great experience.”

Although they may be at vastly different ends of the industry at this stage, the prospect of hearing Nas & AZ hook up for a full-length project will never lose its lustre.

Which of these albums would you love to hear? 

After years of waiting, the creative brain trust that is El-P and Killer Mike, better known as Run The Jewels, have finally wrapped on Run The Jewels 4. El Producto confirmed the news on Twitter this morning with a concise yet hype-inducing proclamation: "RTJ4 is done." Given that the pair have been busy finalizing the project for a minute now, with El previously describing it as a "filthy, dirty, dusty" body of work, the news comes as a pleasant surprise to the duo's loyal fanbase.

Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images

Other than the revelation that the project is "done," much about the fourth installment remains a mystery. Details surrounding guest appearances or a possible release windows remain scarce, though it wouldn't be surprising to see them drop it before hitting the road with Rage Against The Machine in March. While you might be tempted to call that wishful thinking, ask yourself this: why wouldn't El and Mike want to take their new material on tour?

Either way, expect more news on RTJ4 to surface in the coming weeks. Given that the pair have yet to miss, look for this one to be another major release for one of hip-hop's most unexpected yet deniably harmonious bromances.