I was going through my bookmarked YouTube videos and found a since forgotten but still relevant link to DJ Shadow featuring Run the Jewels. Released on this day 4 years ago, it’s the official music video for Shadow’s Nobody Speak.
DJ Shadow—from California—has been producing music for the last 30 years. Endtroducing….., his 1996 debut album, holds a world record for being the first album composed entirely of sampled music. Shadow’s use of sounds from electronica and hip hop echoed an English genre originating out of Bristol in the early 1990s. Known as trip hop, this vast genre used elements from break beat, house, ambient, and psychedelic electronic music and mixed them with contemporary hip hop, rhythm and blues, funk, and jazz. Reaching its peak in the late 1990s and into the first decade of the millennium, trip hop remains influential to this day.
Run the Jewels is a rap duo comprised of Killer Mike—based in Atlanta—and El‐P—from Brooklyn. The two met during previous collaborations—culminating in El‐P’s production of Killer Mike’s 5th album in 2012. Run the Jewels was formed the following year in 2013 and has enjoyed critical acclaim since then.
El‐P’s lyrics are often aggressive and verbose, evoking imagery from pop culture as well as science fiction and fantasy worlds, with particular focus on dystopian themes of authoritative governments and monopolistic corporations. El‐P’s work as producer over the last 20 years helped drive and define the alternative hip hop genre, a style which rejects the often stereotypical and commercially‐driven aspects of gangsta, bass, and party rap.
Killer Mike’s lyrics are driven by his views on social equality, police brutality, and systemic racism. As a musician and activist, Mike has been a voice for racial justice in America. He’s lectured on race relations at New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He’s previously worked with Bernie Sanders in 2015 during Sanders’ presidential campaign, and more recently spoke in May with Keisha Lance Bottoms—the mayor of Atlanta—in response to the killing of George Floyd.
Back in August of 2016 it was clear either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump would be the next president of the United States. And on the 8th of November, as the result was becoming apparent, this video came to my mind. I later circulated the link among my friends. Trump’s End-Game is how I framed it.
The production as originally envisioned was to be a “positive, life-affirming video that captures politicians at their election-year best,” according to DJ Shadow.
“We got this instead,” he said.
We got this instead indeed.