This summer Run The Jewels announced RTJX – Celebrating 10 Years of Run The Jewels, a series of anniversary live events being presented in New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles in the Fall. Run The Jewels, being beloved Atlanta rapper Killer Mike and Brooklyn rapper/producer EL-P, originally started in Atlanta as a free thank you gift for fans following the successes of Killer Mike’s (El-P produced) R.A.P. Music and El-P’s Cancer4Cure albums, releasing the first, self titled Run The Jewels in 2013. While they had already become major players in hip hop on their own, Run The Jewels success as a duo only ballooned together over these next 10 years. Grammy nominations, gold-certified singles, mainstage appearances at basically every major music festival, global touring, art, beer, cannabis, film, tv and more. Oh and now 4 RTJ albums (RTJ 1-4) that showed what a force this duo is with an ode to the classics of hip hop always in effect, but plenty of modern hip hop influences within, including the current scenes in Brooklyn and Atlanta, showing Run The Jewels as one of the most influential hip hop duos in modern times, yet still a bright future ahead.
Four albums in, and a 10 year anniversary during the same year as a Killer Mike solo album release cycle, with these being the only Run The Jewels show in 2023, the only appropriate solution for this celebration tour, RTJX – Celebrating 10 Years of Run The Jewels, is to do 4 nights in each city: NYC, Chicago, LA, and Atlanta. And you guessed it, the only proper option is to do a full album each night, in each city, RTJ 1, RTJ 2, etc. A different set each night, 4 nights per city. Bold. Add in a plethora of special guests and surprises along the way, and these shows were set to be something special.
We were lucky enough to hit Night 4 of 4 at the Eastern in Atlanta, which means, we got RTJ4, the duo’s critically acclaimed fourth album, and most recently released album from 2020 which debuted at number 10 on US Billboard chart, their highest debut.
RTJ4 is well, fire, so obviously this one started out just the same. There is a lot of love in Atlanta for Killer Mike, much more so than just his music, but also what he does for the city and his social activism. So there is definitely a lot of love for Run The Jewels here. And the duo themselves have a lot of love for this city, there was plenty of emotions. A dude from Atlanta and a dude from Brooklyn come together and making something great, something important. They were ready, the crowd was ready, and with “yankee and the brave” kicking things off, it was jumping right in. Greg Nice came out for “ooh la la” on the second track, who you may know from Nice & Smooth (a hip hop group from the lates 80’s/90’s), with plenty of hype for his parts on one of RTJ’s biggest songs. From there Run The Jewels let it all out across the album’s 11 songs, performing songs that aren’t often, if at all, performed live when doing these full albums, which always makes for a unique, emotional set.
Of course that wasn’t all. After finishing up RTJ4 and a quick break, they came back for another 8 songs from their discography, making for a 19 song set. That encore was hype with “Run The Jewels”, “Legend Has It”, “Oh My Darling Don’t Cry”, and more before closing it down with “Angel Duster”, the closing song on RTJ2. These two are on top of the game in so many ways, but most of all, Run The Jewels always puts on one hell of a live show.
Check out photos below from Run The Jewels performing live at The Eastern in Atlanta, GA on Thursday, October 5th, 2023, Night 4 of 4 run, all photos by Mike Gerry:
RUN THE JEWELS ONLINE:
WEBSITE // BANDCAMP // FACEBOOK // INSTAGRAM // TWITTER
UPCOMING RUN THE JEWELS TOUR DATES:
Oct 11 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Palladium
Oct 12 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Palladium
Oct 13 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Palladium
Oct 14 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Palladium
