Lie, Cheat, Steal, Kill, Create: How Rap Duo Run the Jewels Sparked an Art Movement
Introducing #fangrams, a recurring Instagram @music feature focused on fan art. For more artwork from Run the Jewels, check out the fan page @run_the_jewelsgto on Instagram.
“We’re gonna burn this stage to the motherf—ing ground!”
Even in the muddy farm fields of England you can feel it. Killer Mike (@killermike), one-half of the American rap group Run the Jewels, issues the battle cry, and the crowd reacts in kind. He is standing next to his friend and fellow band member, El-P (@thereallyrealelp). Both are sweating, stoned and sporting enormous grins over the sight in front of them: thousands of hands formed in the shape of a clenched fist and pistol, the group’s official logo and calling card.
A Run the Jewels (RTJ) show is fueled by adrenaline — a barrage of mosh pits and sprawled out crowd surfers. However, those moments come and go. What stays put is the symbol — always prevalent, always popping up in the audience or on stage. Jay Z may have his diamonds and Wu-Tang their W’s. But in 2015, that logo love is being thrown at a comparatively new hip-hop duo with only two albums to their name.
“People are inspired by the music and symbolism,” says El-P, while sitting next to Mike in the back of a trailer at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago, a few weeks after their barnburner of a set in the UK. In two hours, they will turn it back on again, this time for their stateside fans. “Every single day someone is doing something. From 10-year-old kids drawing us in school, to advanced artists painting or sculpting. There’s so much s—.”
And don’t forget the tattoos.
“Tattoos out the a–!” he shouts.
“The tattoo movement tripped me out the first time I started seeing it on the road,” adds Mike, as he leans back on the couch. “I just figured it was drunk white guys. And then it got to number 15. I was like, this is dope! Oh s—, this is wild!”
Coincidentally, El-P, an underground rapper from Brooklyn, and Mike, an Atlanta-based emcee best known for his work with Outkast, began Run the Jewels as a one-off. But then came two critically acclaimed records in two years, dozens of sold-out shows and, to paraphrase one of Mike’s rhymes, oodles of fan art, all based on the rappers’ faces and symbol.
Both artists noticed the effect immediately. It started at a show in Nashville, soon after their first album came out. Up toward the front were a couple of friends, one white, one black, holding up giant heads of the rappers on sticks. Months later, they saw a woman with repurposed Hulk hands in the shape of the fist-and-gun logo. Things took off from there.
“It’s going fourth dimension,” says Mike. “It’s like the comic book character, when they look over the other character’s shoulder and acknowledge the audience, like, I know you out there. This cool thing that we created, that we became, has become this living, breathing expression of art. For the artists and audience to give back to us, to inspire us, is abso-f—ing amazing.”
Adds, El-P: “It’s turned into this art project that’s bigger than me and Mike.”
He’s not joking. Just this month, fans put together their own Run the Jewels art exhibit in San Francisco. And last January, Marvel went and created two covers for Deadpool and Howard the Duck, which incorporated the logo. (According to Rolling Stone, the idea came to Marvel editor-in-chief Axel Alonso after he heard his son and his friends yelling “Run them jewels fast!” — a nod to the group’s song “Close Your Eyes (And Count to F—)” — after scoring a touchdown at a football game.)
Both Mike and El-P are amazed yet slightly dumbfounded by all the attention, particularly for a symbol that was borne out of El-P just messing around with his hands and sending ideas to his designer friend, Nick Gazin, who would eventually turn the rapper’s picture into the logo we know today. A lot of the art the two emcees now find comes to them online, when fans tag their Instagram accounts. The two even went so far as to hire one of the artists they found, Ian Klarer, to design their Blade Runner-inspired fall tour poster.
“I really think there’s something so overtly cool about them,” says Ian, who’s based in Louisville, Kentucky. “They are legitimate. They are not contrived.”
Creating fan art is a commitment. It is getting a rap group’s logo tattooed on your legs. It’s spending days carving a sculpture of your favorite band. It’s tagging walls as part of a graffiti campaign. It’s repurposing and sampling famous imagery — the Kool-Aid Man, Star Wars — and combining it with the calling card of an emcee. It’s a young kid riding by himself in an amusement park ride, throwing up a fist and a pistol, screaming, “Run them jewels fast!”
There has been a tremendous amount of love shown to both members — so much so that it’s hard for them to express their true feelings about it.
“Me and Mike are sort of in this constant state of not really knowing what to say,” says El-P. “You don’t even know if you could say something that would express the humility that it brings on you. It’s like, wow.”
He thinks on it for a second, and continues.
“You say thank you. Beyond that, even thank you doesn’t make much sense. Thank you is saying you did this for us. And really, I think people are doing it for themselves. I think people have connected with an idea and we just handed them some symbolism to play with and to expand and to make theirs.”
“There is a secret code amongst this audience that they take everywhere they go. That’s how I felt with Wu-Tang when I was a kid,” says Mike.
“And you know what, real s—, we have a very mixed audience,” El-P chimes in. “And that’s one of the most beautiful things about it. It’s very easy to find yourself in front of just one race of people when you do this music.
Mike cuts in: “And class of people!”
It’s always been impossible to decipher what will and won’t go popular. But the Run the Jewels model provides some clarity. Both artists were already established cult favorites beforehand, both brought along disparate though dedicated fan bases and both went on to release two critically acclaimed records as a group. Most importantly, though, they have an existing relationship. El-P and Mike are more than members in the same band. They are brothers, bonded through a love of hip-hop and pop culture, and dedicated and passionate about social issues and politics. And all that comes out in their music and imagery.
“That symbol is something that kids are holding and they are creating something meaningful for themselves,” says El-P. “It is connecting them in a different way. That symbol, it’s really something that’s been defined by the people who are throwing it back at us.”
“Absolutely,” says Mike. “We opened it up. When we got the music out, it was essentially a calling card for anybody who likes this s— to come. And that’s been the spirit of it ever since. I can literally go online now and see a little kid throwing that s— up. A baby!”
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