Category
🎵
MusicTranscript
00:00 I heard Muhammad Ali talk about being humble.
00:02 He said, "You know, I tried to be humble.
00:03 Y'all didn't listen to me when I drove a little car,
00:05 stayed in a little house."
00:06 It wasn't until I started talking braggadociosly
00:08 and wearing diamonds and things,
00:10 that's when people listen.
00:11 And you have to recognize that.
00:12 Like, for as humble in spirit as I am,
00:15 people really look at me and listen a lot better
00:18 when I got eight pounds of gold on my neck.
00:20 'Cause they know I'm not fucking playing.
00:22 - Yeah.
00:23 (laughing)
00:24 (upbeat music)
00:27 (upbeat music)
00:30 - Hello, you're watching NME.
00:31 I'm Jordan Bassett, and we're here with the brilliant
00:33 Killer Mike.
00:34 - What's up, brother?
00:35 How you doing?
00:36 - Thanks for being here.
00:37 - Thanks for having me.
00:38 - So we're here to talk about "Michael,"
00:39 your amazing latest record.
00:41 - Thank you.
00:42 - I think you probably,
00:43 the only way to describe it is to call it a magnum opus.
00:46 (laughing)
00:47 That's the phrase, right?
00:49 Because it's an absolutely massive record.
00:52 You've been talking about really big themes.
00:54 You're talking about family.
00:56 You're talking about race.
00:58 You're talking about masculinity.
01:00 Sonically, it's kind of like a potted history
01:03 of Atlanta hip hop.
01:04 And yet at the same time,
01:06 it's a very intimate record as well.
01:09 The clues in the title, you're talking about your life.
01:11 You're talking about your journey.
01:13 It's kind of a coming of age story.
01:15 And I'm wondering why now was the time for "Michael,"
01:20 because of course, a lot of people will know you
01:22 as one half of From the Jewels with LP.
01:25 It's been just over 10 years since your last solo record.
01:28 So why now?
01:29 - 'Cause I realized if, you know,
01:31 this is 20 years in the game
01:33 and people have met the persona of "Michael."
01:36 They've met Killer Mike,
01:38 who was named Killer Mike in a rap battle at 16,
01:42 who is the product of a nine-year-old's daydream
01:45 of being an MC.
01:46 And they'd met me in proxy to Outkast.
01:49 They've known me in proxy to my kinship and friendship
01:52 with people like T.I. and Makin' Music.
01:54 And they've known me as one half
01:55 of one of the greatest rap groups ever
01:57 and run the Jewels.
01:59 But they hadn't met "Michael."
02:00 And, you know, with COVID happening
02:02 and with me getting incredibly sick for two weeks
02:04 before they even named it COVID.
02:06 - For no way.
02:07 - Yeah, and seeing people leave too soon,
02:12 I just, man, I was like,
02:12 what a shame it'd be for me to die.
02:14 And then people get introduced to me.
02:16 So while I'm here, let me give opportunity
02:18 for people to know fully who I am.
02:21 - Oh, wow.
02:22 So, I mean, the record came out in summer.
02:24 And what kind of responses have you had
02:27 when you've met people on the street,
02:28 when you've met fans at shows?
02:30 - There's no place that I go that working class men
02:34 of all races, creeds, colors, and ethnicity
02:36 and the women who love them
02:38 that are, that I don't get recognized
02:40 and this record doesn't get acknowledged.
02:41 I was in a barbershop before I came here.
02:44 And before I left, a customer who hadn't got his haircut
02:48 came up, asked for a picture and said,
02:49 "Man, that Michael album is absolutely incredible."
02:52 And it speaks to people in a way that I wanted it to.
02:57 It shows a commonality amongst a worker class,
03:00 even though it's race specific,
03:02 because I'm talking about me as this little black boy
03:05 growing up in this black enclave in Atlanta,
03:08 in this country where I'm very much minority,
03:10 but in my city, I'm not a minority.
03:12 In my city, I'm the majority.
03:13 In my city, opportunity abounded.
03:15 And I don't come from the same story that you hear
03:18 a lot of rappers or hip hoppers come from,
03:20 where they felt second class, they felt put aside,
03:23 they felt not seen.
03:24 I felt seen.
03:26 I never felt second class.
03:27 And if I was critiqued or criticized,
03:29 it was usually by someone who looked like me
03:31 who wanted me to do better.
03:32 So it gave me an opportunity to present
03:34 a different narrative of a black man.
03:37 It gave me an opportunity to present hip hop
03:40 in a way that August Wilson's plays, Fences,
03:43 or Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God,
03:46 or James Baldwin's speeches would affect me.
03:48 It gave me an opportunity to show the working class
03:51 in a dignified manner.
03:53 Gave me an opportunity to show addiction
03:56 in a way that showed empathy,
03:57 and addicts weren't just used and abused.
04:00 Gave me an opportunity to make peace with the fact
04:02 that my mother and grandmother are gone.
04:04 And so many women, including the mothers of my children,
04:07 have poured into me, and the expectations
04:09 from our community is to do great things.
04:11 So it gave me an opportunity to say thank you,
04:13 and to hopefully have done something to reward
04:15 all that was poured into me.
04:16 - What you're talking about there is quite specific, right?
04:20 But you're in a barber shop in London,
04:23 and a guy comes up to you. - Exactly.
04:24 - So what do you think is the universality
04:28 that is connected, just the pure honesty of the record?
04:30 - The pure honesty of it.
04:31 And the working class is not radically different.
04:33 You're perceived as a white man,
04:35 I'm perceived as a black man.
04:36 But if we grow up, whether it is the working class
04:39 in London or the working class in America,
04:41 we grow up with similar issues and problems.
04:44 We grow up with similar joys and triumphs.
04:47 And I think that that commonality
04:48 is what brings us together.
04:50 I think that people are listening to a rapper
04:53 talk to regular people about his regular life and upbringing.
04:58 And there's an extraordinarism in regularity.
05:00 There's something extraordinary about my grandfather
05:03 getting up at five in the morning, every morning,
05:05 and eating an English-style breakfast.
05:07 I didn't know we were eating an English-style breakfast.
05:09 I just thought my grandpa liked beans in the morning.
05:12 And his grandson goes on to become a world-famous rapper
05:16 and travels to the United Kingdom
05:18 to see that the food that he ate two, three times a week
05:21 shares a commonality with the worker class here.
05:23 'Cause why were you eating beans
05:25 and three different proteins for breakfast?
05:26 'Cause you're gonna go work 10, 12 hours a day
05:28 in a field or on a truck or welding or doing something.
05:31 So it made me feel a greater kinship
05:33 to the working class here.
05:35 So for me, I just want people to understand that
05:38 in telling my story, I didn't understand at first
05:41 that I was gonna be telling all our stories,
05:43 but I understand now.
05:45 And I have a greater responsibility to keep making music
05:48 that leans into the direction of the common man and woman.
05:51 - Yeah, I mean, that's totally true.
05:54 There's obviously Dave Chappelle's monologue in "Run,"
05:59 and he's talking about specifically the experience
06:02 of being a black man in America.
06:03 And he says, "It's just like being--"
06:07 - Storming the beaches of Normandy.
06:09 - Right, and that brought me to tears
06:11 the first time I heard that, and it still does.
06:13 And I'll be honest, I've got very limited experience
06:16 of what he's talking about there,
06:17 but it speaks to you.
06:19 - It does, it does.
06:20 I mean, I brought to tears to this record still.
06:23 A lot of people feigned outrage because Dave said that.
06:27 But what he said made the most sense in the world.
06:29 The 18-year-old boys that were storming
06:31 the beach of Normandy, they had no idea
06:34 of what the grand global political scape
06:36 and scope that brought them there.
06:38 They thought they were fighting for freedom
06:39 and patriotism, and they were.
06:41 But honestly, it is always the proletariat
06:44 that dies in wars.
06:45 It's never rich men's sons.
06:47 It's never the monarchs that die in war.
06:48 It's us, it's our children that die in war.
06:51 And hence, even on the streets, if you are a minority
06:55 or you are a class that is not cared about,
06:58 you don't understand why your friends die from senseless
07:01 and London-ness stabbings and America's shootings.
07:04 It may not make sense that my friend Zeke is dead
07:06 or Bunk is dead, and I'm here.
07:08 Zeke and Bunk are gone.
07:10 The only remnants of their life that remain
07:12 that's not with their mothers or grandmothers or sisters
07:14 is my song, is me and Sleepy talking about
07:17 and keeping that memory alive.
07:18 And you don't make sense of it.
07:20 I can't tell you why Bunk didn't survive the drug game
07:22 and somehow I did.
07:23 I can't tell you why Zeke didn't survive
07:25 young wildin' and I did.
07:27 But my goal while I'm here is to keep running,
07:30 to keep making sure that they name lives on
07:32 in all the peaks and valleys that I go.
07:34 And that's what I'm called to do.
07:35 So Dave's monologue for those people that were offended,
07:38 I'm gonna say just take some time
07:40 and peep the point of view that none of us
07:42 really understand why us.
07:44 None of us understand why we swam stronger
07:47 and faster than those other sperm.
07:48 But we're here, and since you're here,
07:50 make something of the life while you're here.
07:52 - Yeah, I saw your show in London the other night.
07:56 - What'd you think?
07:57 - It was an amazing show.
07:58 You had your choir.
08:00 - Midnight revival, man.
08:01 - It was beautiful.
08:02 - Thank you.
08:03 - And when you talked, you sort of touched upon
08:07 what you were talking about earlier,
08:09 your relationship with the UK.
08:10 And you said when you first came to the UK,
08:12 you felt sort of embraced.
08:14 So could you tell me a bit more about that?
08:16 - You guys have a love for soul music here,
08:18 and what they call vanilla soul.
08:20 But whether it's my mom introducing me
08:22 to Culture Club and Sade,
08:25 my mom loved Wham and George Michael,
08:27 my wife loves Adele, you know what I mean?
08:29 There is a strong love of music here
08:34 that still feels pure in a way like it did
08:37 when I first discovered music as a child.
08:39 People come to live shows and are enthused.
08:42 And you still have that in America too,
08:44 but there is a, when you have so much of something,
08:48 sometimes you can take it for granted.
08:50 And when you can so easily access entertainers
08:52 and athletes and what feels like stardom
08:55 because you have a certain amount of internet
08:58 and IG followers or something,
08:59 you can take for granted the artistry of it.
09:02 And it feels like here that there's still
09:04 a deep appreciation for the artistry.
09:06 And I like being here.
09:08 (laughing)
09:09 - There was a kind of, I don't know,
09:11 kind of religiosity in some ways.
09:14 So could you talk about what sort of space
09:17 you're occupying when you put on a show like that
09:22 with the choir and you kind of,
09:24 it was almost like being a preacher or something.
09:26 - Yeah, I mean God's in the building.
09:27 And you know, my grandmother would say to me,
09:30 and you know, I'm glad I'm wearing shades
09:31 'cause sometimes I tear up when I think about it.
09:34 But you know, she told me you can't keep running
09:36 from the Lord.
09:37 And I can remember being a child, being a young boy,
09:41 and people would tell my grandmother he's anointed.
09:43 And in a Pentecostal tradition that means
09:45 that God has shown favor on you.
09:47 You have a mission or purpose.
09:50 And I ran for years for my purpose.
09:54 You know, I ran, I was having fun.
09:57 All the same shit I do now.
09:59 But I didn't accept my purpose.
10:01 And now that I've accepted purpose,
10:03 I realized that God doesn't want me in a church,
10:07 you know, dressed up every Sunday telling people
10:09 that they're gonna go to hell.
10:11 God wants me the same place he wanted Jesus,
10:13 in the streets, ministering to people,
10:15 letting people know that in spite of addiction,
10:17 in spite of your circumstance,
10:20 in spite of what others may say about you,
10:21 you perceive as higher, you're loved
10:23 and you're to be revered.
10:25 And you are just as important as any creation
10:28 or creature God has made.
10:30 So in a lot of ways, I have to accept the fact
10:33 that I am a preacher.
10:34 And I've never wanted to accept that
10:36 because, you know, the other shit is so fun.
10:39 (both laughing)
10:40 But what I've learned is that God doesn't want me
10:45 to be anything other than Michael.
10:48 - So this realization, this emerged around the time
10:53 that you're making this record?
10:54 And was it maybe like a COVID thing
10:57 because you were more introspective during that time?
10:59 - Yeah, I was.
11:00 I mean, I got to sit still, I got to be home.
11:01 I hadn't been home, we'd been on the road
11:03 seven years at that point.
11:04 You know, one of my children is waiting a kidney transplant,
11:08 gave me an opportunity to be with him more.
11:11 Got a chance, the three oldest children
11:12 had been on the road essentially their whole lives,
11:14 gave me an opportunity to just be at home, to enjoy.
11:18 And my aunt is 88 years old, she still walks a mile a day,
11:22 she still moves around with her great, great grandchildren.
11:25 I got a chance to hang out with her,
11:26 to see and be with my sisters, to smoke weed
11:30 with my friends from high school and college,
11:32 and to be back home, to really be back home
11:36 and to really finally have to accept
11:38 what my grandmother would say,
11:39 like you can't keep running from God.
11:41 God laid me on my face.
11:43 After we shot "Ooh La La" and came home,
11:46 I just, I went to my friend's dad's funeral,
11:48 who I thought his dad looked as healthy
11:50 and as great as my dad.
11:52 His dad all of a sudden died, I go to his dad's funeral,
11:54 and it brings me to the point that I have to accept
11:57 that less like my mother had died,
11:58 one day my father's, I have two dads,
12:00 both of my dads are gonna be gone,
12:01 so give your father some time,
12:03 it gave me a time to understand I'm gonna be a dad.
12:05 So as I'm sick and I'm laying there,
12:07 and I'm literally feeling like this could be it,
12:10 and my wife, who I convinced to drop out
12:11 of nursing school years ago,
12:13 thank God she got enough nursing school
12:14 to nurse me back to health.
12:16 And after I came out of that, I just said,
12:18 I can't live another year
12:19 without putting the testimony down.
12:21 And me and my A&R cuz, Lightyear, we locked in the studio,
12:25 and for the next year, year and a half,
12:27 we just worked our ass off, put 39 songs together,
12:31 called Dion, no ID, who I'd been friends with forever,
12:35 and finally said, I'm ready to do the album with you.
12:37 Can I bring it out, flew the album out, let him hear it,
12:40 and he said, this is what we're gonna do.
12:42 And man, from that year to the next year and a half,
12:45 we spent perfecting this record.
12:47 - I mean, it's such a distinctive sounding record.
12:50 It's a very gospel influenced.
12:51 - That's purposeful, yeah.
12:53 - It sounds to me.
12:55 So, could you talk about this sort of story
12:58 you're telling sonically,
12:59 and which influences you're drawing from with this record?
13:02 - So, there are characters in this record,
13:04 and you're gonna see them pop up in the future,
13:06 but the main character,
13:08 besides the nine year old boy on the cover of Michael,
13:10 the mischievous little lad with the horns and the halo,
13:13 is Atlanta.
13:15 - Yes.
13:15 - Atlanta as a character.
13:17 So Rico Wade of the Dungeon Family,
13:19 his voice serves as the voice of Atlanta,
13:21 whether he's talking about a young girl
13:23 being pregnant before time,
13:25 and her having to make the hard decision,
13:27 or whether he's introducing saying,
13:28 "You know, it hasn't been hard, it's just been a journey."
13:31 You know, journeys have ups and downs.
13:32 Also characters in there,
13:34 when you hear me talk about my high school sweetheart,
13:37 who I loved, who I've got pregnant,
13:38 we had to have an abortion.
13:39 You not gonna forget that when you hear me talk
13:41 about my wife, and comparing her to Coretta Scott King,
13:44 and Betty Shabazz, you know, and Winnie Mandela.
13:47 That strikes a particular emotion out of you.
13:50 It gives you a particular picture.
13:52 It's a movie on audio,
13:53 and so it's a movie with soundtrack,
13:56 it's a movie with soundscape,
13:57 it's a movie with characters,
13:58 and it's meant for you to play,
14:00 and it's meant for you to play in long form,
14:02 to press play and just let it go.
14:05 And I want you to close your eyes,
14:06 or if you're cleaning up,
14:07 but I want your conscious mind to be gone.
14:10 - Right.
14:10 - You know, it's like when Maya Angelou would write,
14:13 she would say she'd put jigsaw puzzles and stuff around her
14:15 so she could let her conscious mind do something,
14:17 so her subconscious mind could really come out.
14:19 And this album is meant for that.
14:21 It's meant for you to close your eyes to,
14:23 or do something so your subconscious mind
14:25 can really hear it, can really start to visualize it.
14:28 And, you know, I wanted people to know people
14:31 that I know that they had known.
14:33 Everyone knows an addict.
14:35 There's an addict in every family.
14:36 Some of us are the addicts in our family,
14:38 but rap music had never done a good job
14:40 at showing sympathy, giving empathy to addicts.
14:43 We've never done a great job,
14:44 and perhaps we couldn't.
14:46 We were so caught up in the mire of the drug war.
14:49 We were so caught up in being petty hustlers
14:51 or major figures or wanting to be aspirationally.
14:54 You know, everyone wants to be the winner.
14:55 No one wants to be the loser.
14:57 But man, a lot of times people in life lose.
14:59 So it gave me an opportunity to introduce you
15:01 to the addict in a different way.
15:03 You know, when you look at High and Holy, you know,
15:05 and I pay homage not only to the men of my community,
15:09 but to the women they've had children by.
15:10 That's my honor, to pay you respect,
15:12 and the same respect to all your baby mamas.
15:14 That's not something that you commonly hear in rap,
15:17 but that's something that I commonly see in my community.
15:19 You know, I see women that'll be like,
15:21 oh, that's what's his name's like.
15:22 How you doing?
15:23 You know, it's a, and I wanted a chance
15:25 to show the black community in an uplifted way,
15:27 because we are.
15:28 We're dignified people.
15:30 We're a God-fearing people.
15:32 We are embracers of love and joy.
15:36 And through it all, through all our pain
15:38 and all the petulance we've faced,
15:41 we've done it with the dignity and with the grace.
15:43 And I wanted this album to show that.
15:45 And sonically, I wanted you to feel that.
15:47 I wanted you to every record, start with the record,
15:50 go through a conflict or a peak or a valley,
15:52 and come to a conclusion at the end.
15:54 It's almost like a scene in a movie,
15:56 and then it sets you up for the next scene.
15:58 It's no mistake that something for junkie
16:01 leads you directly into motherless.
16:03 My mother suffered from addiction.
16:04 She was my greatest hero, my greatest champion,
16:07 and she couldn't defeat the fact
16:09 that she was so deeply sensitive as a human being
16:12 that she had to use drugs to numb that,
16:15 because otherwise you would have just been an open sore
16:17 that the world constantly hurt.
16:19 So I needed to bring people into my world.
16:23 And sonically, I knew if the music felt like it was cohesive
16:27 and supposed to be together,
16:28 that it'd be easier for people to suspend disbelief
16:31 or shut out whatever was going on and focus in.
16:33 So all of that was purposeful, and I'm glad you got it.
16:37 - But I'm thinking, when you're talking about your mother,
16:41 you're talking about, as you mentioned,
16:44 teenage pregnancy, abortion, this is very visceral stuff.
16:48 So did you have any reticence
16:51 about putting that out into the world?
16:53 - I've been wanting to do it for so long,
16:55 it was almost therapeutic.
16:56 I started seeing a therapist too,
16:58 a black woman who really understood my conflicts,
17:03 my concerns, my cares, and who helped me get into,
17:08 get into a place where I was comfortable
17:10 just telling it all.
17:11 Like I've always given people clues to me
17:13 that there's a sinner and a saint.
17:15 But this was the first time I said,
17:17 well, this is who he is, in full.
17:20 And I was nervous about how people would take it,
17:22 but what I found out is that more people
17:24 have those halos and horns,
17:26 and they were finally glad to hear that someone say
17:28 that I'm both, I don't have to,
17:30 from an ideological standpoint,
17:32 pick a side and point at the other side and say you're wrong.
17:35 - You mentioned at the show the other night
17:37 that you saw Michael as part of the extended
17:40 Run the Jaws universe.
17:41 - It is, absolutely it is, absolutely.
17:43 - How does that relationship work then?
17:45 - Well, if you're a comic book reader,
17:47 you've heard about the Uncanny X-Men.
17:48 So I read that comic book.
17:51 I have two dads, a bio and a non-bio dad.
17:54 And my bio dad, of course, was a police officer.
17:56 My biological father was a police officer earlier in my life.
18:00 My non-bio dad had been a steel worker and a truck driver,
18:03 but he never let the kid in him die.
18:04 He still collects Hot Wheels and comic books
18:07 and trading cards, so that was something he encouraged.
18:10 And we would go to this little shoddy comic book store
18:13 that used to be in the West End
18:15 that's on the western side of Atlanta,
18:17 that's all Black Enclave.
18:18 And my dad, before he went and bought his Playboys
18:21 that I would sneak and read later,
18:22 we'd buy comic books together.
18:24 And I still remember when he bought me
18:26 my first issue of Uncanny X-Men.
18:28 I was just amazed that there were so many
18:30 different types of mutants and no one looked alike.
18:32 No one's powers were the same.
18:34 And there wasn't just one character.
18:36 My character within the Run the Jaws universe
18:38 is Killer Mike, he's a swaggering, badass motherfucker.
18:41 He talks about his mom as though she was a wicked queen
18:46 over a fucking, just ruling the streets.
18:50 And you get a chance to meet her, the real person,
18:54 because you get behind the Wolverine mask
18:56 and you get to Logan.
18:58 You get to the human being that is Michael.
19:00 So when you hear me, "Mom, I heard that your mom
19:04 "was a murderous queen," you get a chance
19:06 to hear that thanosful little boy interpretation of her
19:10 as a man that just misses his mother,
19:13 that misses her so deeply.
19:14 He wears her every day and her mother around his neck
19:16 and he prays and meditates every morning
19:19 and prays that her energy is out there
19:21 and feels and heals, you know?
19:22 So I just needed the Run the Jaws fans to know
19:26 that because this record looks, feels, smells,
19:29 tastes, sounds, and is intricately black,
19:32 that it doesn't exclude you.
19:34 It's just the prequel story to the character
19:37 you get as Killer Mike.
19:38 You get to meet the nine-year-old boy
19:40 that created that character and the world that created him.
19:43 - You said it's part of a trilogy?
19:45 - Yes, yeah, we're gonna do a trilogy.
19:46 - Was that straight up or--
19:47 - No, it's gonna be a trilogy, yeah.
19:48 - Okay. - You gotta do one
19:49 for the father, the son, and the Holy Ghost.
19:51 - Wow, okay. (laughing)
19:52 So what, we're gonna have to wait another 10 years or--
19:54 - Yeah, I would like to be around another 10 years.
19:56 You know, I still think I'm handsome.
19:57 I still got my hair in line, so I'd like to be here.
20:00 - But as in, the follow-up won't be created
20:02 pretty soon? - No, I'm not gonna wait
20:04 10 years.
20:05 I'll be back to work in about 60 days.
20:07 - Wow, okay. - Yeah.
20:08 I wanna march in the Grammys
20:09 and march out with a trophy or two.
20:11 - Yes. - We'll see how that goes.
20:12 But no matter what happens, I'll be back to work
20:14 before the end of the year.
20:15 - Because the Grammys is sort of--
20:17 - February. - It's for consideration
20:19 at the moment, right? - Yeah, yeah.
20:20 I think the 10th, the official nominations
20:22 come out on the 10th.
20:24 - 'Cause I thought it was great.
20:25 I saw that you put on Instagram
20:26 that you sort of explained why you thought
20:29 Michael deserved that accolade.
20:30 - Absolutely, absolutely. - And I totally agree with you.
20:33 I thought it was very cool that you just kind of
20:35 put that out there and said it.
20:36 It kind of makes you vulnerable in some way
20:38 to say that. - Yeah, I'm not gonna lie
20:39 and act like I don't want it or I'm above it
20:40 or I just do it for the art.
20:42 I would like for my art to be recognized.
20:44 Van Gogh was so amazing.
20:46 Such an amazing artist.
20:48 And you hope that his energy understands
20:51 it's recognized, but he died.
20:53 He died unrecognized.
20:54 I don't want to die unrecognized.
20:57 And somewhere in the South, there's a little boy
21:01 or a little girl that's lyrically a motherfucking monster.
21:05 I don't want them to think that they don't stand a chance
21:08 because of that.
21:09 I don't want a learned child to think that
21:11 they don't stand a chance because they're learned.
21:13 I don't want them to be ashamed, to be vulnerable
21:17 or be intelligent or to move with grace and dignity.
21:20 And the only way that that happens is,
21:22 I heard Muhammad Ali talk about being humble.
21:25 He said, "I tried to be humble.
21:27 "Y'all didn't listen to me when I drove a little car,
21:30 "stayed in a little house."
21:31 It wasn't until I started talking braggadociosly
21:34 and wearing diamonds and things,
21:35 that's when people listen.
21:36 And you have to recognize that.
21:38 Like, you know, for as humble in spirit as I am,
21:42 people really look at me and listen a lot better
21:45 when I got eight pounds of gold on my neck.
21:47 'Cause they know I'm not fucking playing.
21:49 So I'd like an opportunity to have those trophies.
21:55 I'll never forget what Lauren made black girls
21:59 and girls across the board feel
22:01 with the miseducation of Lauren Hill.
22:03 And seeing her with those armful of Grammys,
22:06 whether she cares about those Grammys anymore or not,
22:08 at that moment, it meant everything to us as fans
22:11 because a true MC got validated.
22:14 I didn't give a fuck if she was a man or a woman.
22:16 I was just like, "That's us."
22:18 And I would like for the people that have supported me
22:22 for 20 years, supported me and Run the Jewels
22:23 for the last 10 years, I'd like to give them that feeling.
22:26 So whether it's one trophy, three or four,
22:28 I would like for my audience to get an opportunity
22:30 to say, "That's us."
22:31 - It's interesting you talked about
22:33 that you recognize that people listen when you speak
22:38 and that's why you wanted to put yourself
22:41 in that position on stage
22:42 with that almost preacher-type persona.
22:45 But you've talked about how the Dave Chappelle monologue
22:49 emerged because he was urging you to go into politics.
22:52 - Yeah, he was.
22:53 - And you said, "I can't go into politics
22:54 "'cause I like staying out till five in the afternoon."
22:56 - Yeah, five a.m., strip clubs, marijuana.
22:59 I'm usually with my wife.
23:01 And he said, "That's exactly why you should run
23:03 "because we're not asking for you to be perfect.
23:05 "We're asking you to just be truthful and be a leader."
23:09 And I've had to come to the acceptance that I am.
23:12 - So does that mean that you may now decide to do that,
23:14 to try to go into politics?
23:16 - That means whether I,
23:17 I've never not been in politics since five years old.
23:19 My grandmother had me work Andy Young's campaign.
23:22 There's never been an election I have not voted.
23:25 There has not been a local election
23:27 in which I have not helped a candidate.
23:29 So I don't know another way to do it
23:31 because when I asked my grandmother,
23:32 "Why are we doing this?"
23:33 She looks at me and said,
23:34 "Because that's what you're supposed to do."
23:36 - Yeah.
23:36 - You're supposed to be involved in things
23:38 that affect you on a hyper-local level.
23:40 So federally, I don't care to get into shouting contests
23:44 over who's gonna be the president of the United States,
23:46 but I care who's gonna be my prosecutor and my judge,
23:49 who sits on my school board, who's gonna be my mayor.
23:51 I care that I have a relationship
23:54 with the governor of my state,
23:55 that we don't share the same political party.
23:57 We don't share all the same ideology.
23:59 But what we do share is a commonality
24:01 in wanting what's best for our state.
24:03 We share a commonality in wanting the prisoner
24:07 that gets released from jail not to aid
24:10 to the recidivism rate by going back to prison.
24:12 So when I push him or urge him
24:14 to do things that are for trades,
24:16 and a year later he pops up
24:17 and he reinstates the HOPE program,
24:20 the HOPE scholarship that gives people scholarships
24:22 not only to college but trade school,
24:23 I understand that my relationship is an important one.
24:26 'Cause even though there's some people
24:27 that don't wish to engage him on behalf of my community,
24:29 I'm required to do so because God hasn't given me
24:31 this intelligence for nothing.
24:33 God hasn't given me my grandmother
24:34 who gave me an innate political understanding for nothing.
24:37 You've given these talents and these blessings for a reason,
24:40 and they are not just selfish reasons
24:41 for your own material profit or gain.
24:43 And I speak for a greater community,
24:45 so I'm required to do that by what I've been trained to do
24:50 and what I've been encouraged to do my whole life.
24:52 - But what about running for office in some way?
24:54 - I'm gonna get rich as fuck so no one can bribe me.
24:59 - Right, okay.
25:01 - And then I'll run for office.
25:02 - That's like the same God, right, I see, yeah, okay.
25:06 - Bernie Sanders, I remember Bernie, the OG,
25:08 I visited him in Washington when there was a session
25:11 going on and he said that politics
25:14 has just become fundraising.
25:16 That political parties simply want you to come up,
25:20 do your meeting, leave and go raise money for the party.
25:23 And that's not what he got in politics for.
25:25 And I agree with him on that.
25:26 - So you think maybe you can actually just be more effective
25:28 by being a community leader?
25:29 - I've always thought that.
25:31 I've always thought that that's the effect
25:32 is in being a king maker, you know.
25:35 But I've come to realize that my wife says,
25:36 she says whenever you sit down,
25:38 she's like, whenever you choose to not do music
25:41 as a full-time job, she say,
25:42 you know you're gonna get pissed enough to run for office.
25:44 Because I sit there and I yell at the TV like my grandfather.
25:47 (laughing)
25:50 - You just need more time at home
25:51 and then it's gonna happen.
25:52 - Yeah, I think so.
25:52 (laughing)
25:54 - You mentioned earlier, 10 years of Run the Jewels
25:57 and you guys did a bunch of shows to celebrate that.
26:00 How did that feel to do those shows?
26:01 - Amazing, well it was hard as fuck getting ready for them
26:04 'cause we had to remember 56 songs.
26:06 - So you were playing songs from each album,
26:09 you were kind of--
26:10 - No, no, we did each album, the whole album.
26:11 - Is that right, okay, my apologies.
26:14 We did four nights in four different cities
26:16 like a residency, so we did New York, Chicago,
26:18 Los Angeles and Atlanta.
26:19 And each night you did a whole album.
26:21 So if your album is only 40 minutes,
26:24 you do 40 minutes of that album
26:26 and then you just do a mix or a medley
26:27 from the other three albums.
26:29 - Oh, that's what I was thinking of, okay, yeah, yeah.
26:30 So I mean, that's, how do you feel to go back to this stuff
26:34 and think about the legacy that you've built
26:37 in the last decade?
26:38 - Man, I did a lot of prayer and thanking God
26:40 because while you're in the middle of the gunfight,
26:43 you don't think about all the bullets that missed you.
26:46 You know, and so, you know, you look up
26:50 and you're like, God damn, Ben has hair now.
26:52 That's my publicist, I started,
26:55 he just had a regular short crop,
26:57 now he has full hair, I'm just like,
26:58 we've known each other a decade.
27:00 And we've built a relationship and a brotherhood
27:04 and we've built a bond with the community of people
27:06 we call the Jewel Runners.
27:07 So I'm just thankful, I'm just full of gratitude.
27:10 - I know that you mentioned last year
27:11 that there was, you guys were working on some new stuff.
27:13 - Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm like,
27:16 it kind of goes like, El had brought something through
27:18 my, the hotel I stay in Los Angeles,
27:22 there was a studio there.
27:23 So he brought something through, he played it,
27:24 I just jumped on it.
27:25 And it was dope, but it works like,
27:29 usually El will go off, work on beats for months
27:32 or whatever, come back, and with a loaded playlist
27:34 of 10 or 15 records, like, hey, this is what I have,
27:37 what can we do?
27:38 And then I'll go in and listen,
27:40 I'll just start rapping on different things.
27:42 And I'm just waiting on the call.
27:44 So, you know, we'll see, we'll see.
27:46 'Cause he's the producer part,
27:47 so you know what I'm saying?
27:48 The heavy lifting in terms of the music is on him.
27:52 So whenever he feels inspired, I'm here.
27:54 And until he feels inspired, I gotta rap,
27:57 so I'll be back rapping.
27:59 - So he's just got to put other bat signal on that.
28:01 - Yeah, that's it, that's all I'm waiting on.
28:03 When the vaccine comes, I'm there, you know what I mean?
28:05 - What is it about your, can you like,
28:07 sum up in a nutshell what it is about your relationship
28:09 that works so well?
28:10 - Well, it's just meant to be.
28:13 I can't no more tell you why I married my wife
28:17 compared to the dozen other beautiful women
28:19 that I had known, made love to, had children by even.
28:22 I can't tell you, you know, my sister is, you know,
28:26 was just like, my mother was brown
28:29 and had these beautiful ambered eyes
28:31 and I'd always loved brown girls with ambered eyes
28:33 and curly hair and shit, and everyone, you know,
28:36 thought that that's what he was gonna end up with.
28:37 But man, I sure loved the red hair with freckles.
28:41 And there was one who went to a church I went to,
28:42 I'd just stare at her.
28:43 It's the only reason I went to fucking church,
28:45 that like, going to that church.
28:46 And just when I thought I had it all figured out,
28:49 I met a black girl who was born with red hair and freckles
28:52 and I just was enamored by her.
28:53 And I ended up convincing her to marry me
28:55 at three in the morning, high off drugs in Vegas one night.
28:58 And we didn't tell anybody, we were married for nine years
29:01 and we just trampsed around the world together
29:03 and they thought that it was a rapper and this fun girl
29:05 and we had built a serious, committed relationship.
29:08 And me and Ella liked it.
29:09 I can't tell you why we work,
29:10 I just know peanut butter and jelly go together.
29:12 (laughing)
29:15 - That's amazing.
29:16 Okay, so I mean, last question.
29:17 What would you ultimately like people to take from Michael?
29:21 - I don't know if I want you to take anything,
29:23 I want you to keep it with you.
29:25 I'd like for you to keep the hope
29:28 that's in this album with you.
29:30 I'd like you to keep the trials and the triumphs with you
29:33 because as you endure your own,
29:35 I just want you to know you're not alone.
29:37 And I hope that this generational statement,
29:39 this heart, this art that's from the heart,
29:42 I just hope it pierces your heart
29:43 and it becomes a part of you.
29:45 - Come on, man, thank you very much.
29:47 - I appreciate you, brother. - It's great talking to you.
29:48 - Love.
29:49 (upbeat music)
29:51 [BLANK_AUDIO]