Confessions of a Middle-Aged Fanboy and Run the jewels new album

We have been together for nearly two decades, but I haven't spoken to you about my condition. I'm mature and interruptus. It's a form of musical taste that I suffer from.

I used to listen to music that was popular with 15-year-olds. I have listened to whatever music is popular among 15-year-olds since I was in my 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s. My tastes have not changed.

When I was young, I didn't notice it. When I was 14 years old, I discovered Bruce Springsteen, and he has been my main musical guide ever since. My tastes have changed a bit in college, with a whiff of pretentiousness.

During the 1980s, my tastes were once again unremarkable, with the exception of Pet Shop Boys. There were signs that my tastes were becoming more and more like Benjamin Button. I wonder if my devotion to the Go-Go's "Vacation" album was a little obsessive for a man in his 20s. Why did I replace Mozart with "Bette Davis Eyes"? It felt like I was stuck in school for the rest of my life.

I was introduced to all of the amazing hip-hop of the 1990s like everyone else. My ears were straight as I was writing and editing conservative editorials.

It was ridiculous in the 2000s. I lived in a suburb with a minivan. I was dancing along to the song "I kissed a girl and I liked it" by KATY PERRY. As the decade turned, Kesha burst on the scene with a series of dance hits that were supposed to be for children in clubs, but I mostly listened to them on the elliptical.

Taylor Swift's "Tim McGraw" changed world history in the middle of the decade. When I am at an age when I can barely remember high school, why am I constantly listening to high school break up songs?

My favorites came in categories. There were some songs with lyrics that were drunk. Unfortunately, there was only one song that said, "I got hot sauce in my bag, swag." The David Guetta and Pitbull dance anthem is more about life-threatening cardiac events than it is about music. Readers should be reassured that I was not dancing to this music. She says her hips don't lie, and I say my hips are silent.

I don't know why I listen to this music. Billy Idol offered subtle observations on the human condition: "Ride your pony, ride your pony, come on, come on" It is possible that it is because of the inspiring vision of the beloved community offered by the song "Destiny's Child". Maybe it is because Taylor Swift knows that I am a nightmare.

Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn" is one of the pop music masterpieces that I enjoy. I lost touch with the culture. I didn't watch any of the K-pop except "Gangnam Style." The decline and fall of Western civilization was missed by me. It is appropriate to lose track of pop culture trends at some point in middle age to focus on your dread about death.

The time at a Nas concert when a seven-foot tall woman in a black bodice came up to me and asked, "What on earth are you doing here?" is just one of the times that are awkward.

I listen to the music for the energy, for the fun, and because it's a place I can go and not hear opinions on the threat of authoritarianism.

I used to wonder why I listen to music that doesn't tell me anything. You won't find me in the club with bottles full of bub. Maybe that is not a bug. It seems like a waste of time if you don't consider the alternatives.

Sam Fender and Lana Del Rey are some of the good music I listen to these days. I wonder if I have crossed the Billie Eilish Line, where I just don't get a lot of new music. It might be time to grow up. Unless YoungBoy or Kodak Black releases a new album.

Keywords: Mony,music,Mony Mony,Taylor Swift

Run the Jewels is one of the most feel-good stories in hip-hop: the musical equivalent of a buddy comedy starring two aging Gen X rappers who join forces and breathe new life into their art and careers. 

Michael Render (Killer Mike) and Jaime Meline’s (El-P) four studio albums—each minted instant classics—are the product of a unique, alchemical bond, even as they sought to emulate a long line of rap groups who came before them.

But a remix record is about looking outward, expanding the pool of collaborators, and inviting artists with different POVs to reimagine their work. RTJ Cu4tro trains that focus squarely on Latin America, drawing artists from across the diaspora. The musicians featured here live on the cutting edge while flirting with the mainstream—with one notable exception, the Oscar-winning Broadway megastar Lin-Manuel Miranda. While RTJ Cu4tro isn’t the group’s first remix record, it’s the first that doesn’t feel like a joke. At the center of the project is Brooklyn’s Nick Hook, a frequent Run the Jewels collaborator who helped curate and co-executive produce the album with El-P. The record leans hard on Hook’s collaborative relationships and is as much a result of his taste as the group’s.

RTJ Cu4tro highlights some of the more exciting Latinx artists working in the margins, but it doesn’t really work as a coherent album. With wildly different sounds, the sequence doesn’t have the same flow as the original project; it’s as if one attempted to reassemble a puzzle in the same way, even after all the pieces changed shape. 

Since the only connective tissue outside of the original material is the amorphous “Latin” category—a commerce-driven catch-all that places often disparate genres under the same umbrella—that inconsistency is somewhat inevitable. It’s the rare Run the Jewels project in which the sum of its parts exceeds the whole.

RTJ Cu4tro may be a collaborative free-for-all, but it still yields some memorable moments. The best ones feel the most transformative when the connection to the originals is just barely recognizable: Bomba Estéreo’s airy electronic palette pulls “never look back” out of the gutter and into the ether, while cumbia punks Son Rompe Pera continue their relentless campaign to make the marimba sound hard AF on “El Suelo Debajo.” Perhaps the most surprising is Nick Hook and Danny Brasco’s reinvention of “Goonies vs. E.T.,” which pulls a saxophone out of the previously crunchy and chaotic mix, pairing it with a moody new piano melody and a scene-stealing performance from Sarah La Morena.

Others are reshaped by new vocal performances, rather than drastic production changes. Mexican rapper Pawmps heats up Gangsta Boo’s ice-cold hook on “Caminando en la Nieve” with a nimble-tongued Spanish translation, and Lido Pimienta manages the seemingly impossible, matching Mavis Staples’ intensity from “Pulling the Pin” with her singular, cacophonous wail on “Tirando el Detonador.” And while Mexican Institute of Sound’s version of “Ooh La La” sounds somewhat sleepy compared to the original, Guanajuato MC Santa Fe Klan’s rolled Rs and aggressive vocal timbre compliment Mike and Jaime’s well enough to wonder what it might have sounded like on the original.

Meline and Hook deserve props for seeking out collaborators from across the diaspora (Honduras, Venezuela, Colombia, and Mexico); even better is the fact that there are Black and brown artists included here, especially in an industry that tends to center white Latinx performers. In that sense, RTJ Cu4tro feels less like co-opting a culture and more like a genuine interest in Latinx artists—a tacit acknowledgement that these perspectives have been missing from what has so far been an intimate collaborative project.