All the unwritten rules of rap say it doesn't happen like this. Yet Killer Mike, a Black man from Atlanta, Georgia, and El-P, a white man from Brooklyn, New York, have transformed what should have been the twilight of their careers as rappers into their biggest spotlight yet. Known as the hip-hop duo Run The Jewels, they have headlined festivals worldwide, become action figures and Marvel comic book characters, spearheaded a worldwide countercultural movement, and played a significant role in the last two presidential elections.
This is the buddy-movie-like story of how they got there. It is a tale that parallels the incredible changes the music industry has gone through over the past twenty-five years-charting a course from the highs around the turn of the century to the collapse of the CD format and the eventual rise of streaming media-while also mapping the evolution of both pop culture and its sociopolitical climate. From the surging popularity of afrofuturism and the fall of the Twin Towers to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and the kneeling of Colin Kaepernick, such events all tie into how their budding bromance transformed Killer Mike and El-P from solo artists in underground hip-hop to pop cultural icons recognized all over the globe.
"Kill Your Masters admirably engages with the historical and cultural contexts of Run The Jewels and their moment as they blend distinctive styles together in a cacophonous-yet-harmonic soundtrack to an equally polyphonic/rhythmic world."
Charles L. Hughes
"As a genre that requires a specialized knowledge, hip-hop books have a special audience. They tend to be passionate, smart, curious, and open. Kill Your Masters-enthusiastic and discerning-meets them right where they are. Telling a complex story such as the history of Run The Jewels is not an easy task, and Jaap van der Doelen handles it with depth and breadth, interweaving digressions into the g
