Run The Jewels: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Mina Tavakoli, February 6, 2017 Like any good pair of twins, Run the Jewels have a freaky sort of unspoken fraternity. When ElP and Killer Mike strode in with their usual uniforms Mike in a gold chain as thick as a garter snake, El in a fitted Yankees cap and pair of bluemirrored sunglasses the two didn t have to do as much as nod to one another before upending three tracks from their latest LP, RTJ3, in strange and perfect symbiosis. ElP (née ElProducto, née Jaime Meline) rapper, producer, and allaround godfather of the backpacker scene of the late90 s and Killer Mike known for guest features on tracks by Atlanta s Dungeon Family in the earlyaughts, solo work in the midtolate 00s, and perhaps most widely for his very public support of Senator Bernie Sanders presidential campaign last year have outmused each other in a supergroup that somehow seems to get better, louder, and more pertinent since their start in 2013. They represent an ideal evolution of underground hiphop to mainst