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The following is an excerpt from Jaap van der Doelen‘s new book, KILL YOUR MASTERS: Run The Jewels and the World That Made Them, out now, courtesy of UGA Press.
Purchase KILL YOUR MASTERS: Run The Jewels and the World That Made Them here.
Thousands of years after Aristotle wrote Poetics, debate among scholars still continues on how to properly translate the concept of catharsis as described in his evaluation of Greek tragedies. The prevailing definition is that of “a purgation of certain heavy emotions,” which still sounds much too clinical to describe what it actually feels like. Because it feels like a Run The Jewels
concert.
“I would like to give thoughts and prayers to all people who are out there peacefully protesting. And I also give thoughts and prayers to the people who cannot hold their anger in, ’cause riots are only the language of the unheard,” Mike told the audience on November 25, 2014, in St. Louis’s Ready Room. His voice was shaken. His authoritative boom had given way to the sound of a man working through immense pain. Pain he was working through right there, on the spot. “We usually come on to Queen’s ‘[We Are the] Champions.’ And I just gotta tell you, today, no matter how much we do it, no matter how much we get shit together, shit comes along that kicks you on your ass, and you don’t feel like a champion. So tonight, I got kicked on my ass, when I listened to that prosecutor.”
He was referring to prosecuting attorney for St. Louis County Robert McCulloch, who had addressed the nation on live television a mere half hour before they stepped onstage. McCulloch proclaimed the grand jury decision on whether or not police officer Darren Wilson would be prosecuted for the killing of eighteen-year-old Michael Brown. He would not be. On August 9 Brown, unarmed, had been shot in the chest six times by officer Wilson. The two had struggled moments earlier while Wilson was still in his patrol car and attempted to apprehend the young African American man for allegedly stealing a box of cigars from a nearby convenience store in Ferguson, Missouri. Police dispatched a dozen units to the scene after the shooting, while Brown’s corpse was left on the pavement for four more hours before finally being taken to the morgue.
“We are human beings. We deserve to be buried by our children, not the other way around. No matter how u felt about Black people, look at this Mother and look at this father and tell me as a human being how u cannot feel empathy for them,” Mike wrote on his Instagram page two days later. The text accompanied a picture of Brown’s grief-stricken mother and father. His mother looks into the camera with eyes tired beyond comprehension. Her tears have run dry, but the pain has not subsided. It probably never will. His father closes his eyes, puts his arm around and leans his forehead against the back of her head. There is no comfort following a loss like theirs.
“How can u not feel sympathy for their pain and loss. These are not THOTS, n**s/n***rs, hoes, ballers, divas. These two people are parents. They are humans that produced a child and loved that child, and that child was slaughtered like game and left face down as public spectacle while his blood drained down the street.”
The death of Michael Brown was the final straw for Ferguson’s African American residents, who had been living for ages under the violent yoke of what basically amounted to a government-sanctioned shakedown by a racist police force. Riots broke out in the streets of Ferguson.
The Ready Room was less than twenty miles away from the spot where Michael Brown was shot to death months earlier. On the night of the grand jury decision, everybody in the vicinity held their breath. “We had the weird, tragic and serendipitous experience of being the only band, when the verdict was coming down in St. Louis, to be attempting to get into St. Louis. Everybody was driving as fast as they could out of St. Louis,” El-P remembers. “And every word you say suddenly means a hundred times more than it meant the night before. To see and hear my friend talk, I was crying onstage. It was very powerful.”
Mike’s voice broke as he talked to the St. Louis crowd that night. “You motherfuckers got me today. I knew it was coming. I knew when fucking Eric Holder decided to resign, I knew it wasn’t going to be good,” he said, referring to the first African American U.S. attorney general, often called “the people’s lawyer.” Holder had announced his resignation on September 25, 2014, after an extremely tumultuous six years in which he served as what the Guardian described as “a lightning rod for many of the most charged legal storms of the Obama administration.” This was a storm that hadn’t yet abated.
“But you motherfuckers got me today,” Mike continued. “You kicked me on my ass today, because I got a twenty-year-old son, I have a twelve-year-old son, and I’m so afraid for them. You motherfuckers who we vote for, who control our lives, you motherfuckers got me today.” The fear for the lives of his children was palpable through every strained syllable. The crowd roared, unsure of what to do with their emotions. Shouting in agreement couldn’t do anything to assuage his hurt, but the moment was simply too overpowering for them to keep quiet. The pain of a parent is a primal pain.
“When I stood in our bus, and I cried, and I hugged my friend, and he hugged me, right then I said ‘these motherfuckers got me today.’ When I stood in front of my wife, and I hugged her, and I cried, like a baby, I said ‘these motherfuckers got me today,’” Mike went on. “But you motherfuckers will not own tomorrow. We will not live in fear. We will not accept your dangers. We’re not gonna keep playing that race card, ’cause we know you don’t value my skin, and we know you do value his,” he said, as pointing at his partner pacing beside him. “But you know what? We’re friends—and nothing is going to devalue that.”
Mike and El might’ve been at the verge of tears throughout the impromptu speech, but by now the entire audience was sharing that lump in their throat. Mike hadn’t finished yet though. “Before we came out here, there was no peace in my heart, and I wanted to walk out to burn this motherfucker down. Burn this motherfucker down! But I’m from Atlanta, Georgia, and something said ‘Just look for something Martin King might’ve said.’ So I Googled Martin King, and Wikipedia popped up, and he was thirty-nine years old when you motherfuckers killed him. He was the same age as I am. The same age as El. He was a young man when they killed him. But I promise you today: If I die when I walk off this stage tomorrow, it is not about race, it is not about class, it is not about color. It is about what they killed him for. It is about poverty, it is about greed, and it is about a war machine. So I might go tomorrow, I might go the day after, but the one thing I want you to know: It is us, against the motherfucking machine! Let’s go!”
It was at that exact moment that Trackstar let loose the first tones of their opening song. The eponymous “Run The Jewels,” with its synths creeping up, until that devastating bass line drops in conduct with the drums. And as soon as it did, the audience erupted into a fireworks of raw emotion. Mike and El tore into their verses. Trackstar scratched his way through the solo he had performed a hundred times already, but never like this. Music can be magic, and on this night suffering was somehow turned into something that had everybody spellbound.
Mike had initially not wanted to speak. But El thought it’d be best if he said something, and so did Mike’s wife Shana. By the end of the song he was glad he had followed their advice and that his friend was there to stand in solidarity with him. They fell into each other’s arms for the kind of hug only true comrades can share. For the next hour the universe revolved around that one venue at 4195 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri. There were tears, there was pain, but there was also a lot of love and joy. Because nobody in that room needed to be alone in their pain.
And they all knew exactly what catharsis was.
