Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music
Critic Score
Based on 28 reviews
2012 Ratings: #20 / 1118
Year End Rank: #11
User Score
Based on 966 ratings
2012 Rank: #34
Liked by 129 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
Sputnikmusic

R.A.P. Music has redefined what exactly we should expect hip-hop to be and defies regional categorizations. Not only is it essential listening for hip-hop in 2012, but also one of the few records that pushes musical and cultural boundaries in general.

91
Pretty Much Amazing

Killer Mike's masterful R.A.P. Music is about questioning the genre's boundaries, pouring this unlabeled chemical into that one, and watching shit explode.

90
PopMatters

Biographical shock value aside, R.A.P. Music provides enough jaw drops on its own merits that it’s sure to be a record that comes to define 2010s hip-hop in some way.

90
AllMusic

While R.A.P. Music is filled with all the heartbreak, pain, anger, and earnestness praised above, it's also an incredibly fly and fun record, filled with that prime MC/producer chemistry while striking that perfect balance of persuasive and powerful. Revolutionary stuff and absolutely no fluff, R.A.P. Music is outstanding.

90
Prefix

R.A.P. Music is ambitious and incisive and frustrated and angry and serious. But it’s also charged with a vital energy, with the life of music that is — beyond all these heavy ideas — exciting to listen to.

90
SPIN

R.A.P. Music, the sixth album by from Atlanta firebrand Killer Mike, is a stunning anachronism.

90
Consequence of Sound

Erudite without being overwrought and passionate without being dogmatic, what we’ve got here may be the best rap album of the year – at least, so far.

90
HipHopDX

With El-P as its catalyst, R.A.P. Music puts Mike on display has he doles out unheard levels of indignation, fury, and passion.

89
Beats Per Minute

The resulting album is one that is deceptively simple, a send-up to the aggressive cultural awareness of old-school rap on the surface, filtered through a hundred different post-apocalyptic scenarios, musical and lyrical.

88
Paste

R.A.P. Music is a synthesis of the confusion and rancid despair pervading every vacated storefront and foreclosed home in every corner of today’s economically bleeding America.

86
Pitchfork

Limiting himself to one producer, legends-only guest spots, and a real sense that he'd better make this one count, Killer Mike rises to the occasion.

86
Coke Machine Glow

With El-P's help, Killer Mike has produced his first unquestionably great album.

85
The 405

With R.A.P. Music, Killer Mike has made his play for not just the best rap album of 2012, but for the best of recent memory.

85
AllHipHop
It’s the kind of rebellious rap that was once so prominent in the genre, marginalized over the years by noughties economic prosperity and Hip-Hop’s increased commercialism.
83
A.V. Club

It certainly feels like the culmination of his unusual career. 

80
The Needle Drop
On this album-length collaboration, MC Killer Mike and producer El-P manage to complement one another perfectly any major changes in their respective approaches to hip hop.
80
Spectrum Culture

R.A.P. Music is an endlessly re-playable reminder of what can happen when an extremely versatile MC and a perfectly accommodating producer share a vision.

80
Q Magazine

An inspired hook-up that brings out the best in both contributors.

80
NOW Magazine
Killer Mike is the Jäger shot of rap: efficient, acrid and totally devastating.
80
Complex
The result is a forty-six-minute joy ride—a relentless and reverently beat-heavy collection of songs custom-built to wreck eardrums and live stages.
80
XXL
Killer Mike's ability to rap with a purpose while remaining tactful and balanced within his content is an engaging quality of his music, and the pairing with El-P serves his sound well.
80
Drowned in Sound

This is jazz, this is funk, this is soul, this is gospel… but most importantly, R.A.P. Music is rap music, as fresh as it comes.

70
Rolling Stone
Some of his punditry is pure Che T-shirt prattle, but even when he's arguing that there's no difference between Reagan and Obama, his Ice Cube-style bark tumbles down over harried, aggro beats from indie-eminence El-P and hits like a gut punch of revealed wisdom.
70
FACT Magazine

What Killer Mike should be praised for here is making an album that’s shorn of any extraneous nonsense and simply goes hard – regardless of the style he does it in.

50
Under the Radar

There is plenty of good poetry waiting below the poverty line; R.A.P. Music ain't it.

50
NME

The ambition is to be applauded, but half the album’s a grind. And not the good kind. 

Ymer
85

I'm so fucking glad RTJ happened.

Gustavstone07
85

Run The Jewels 0.5

R.A.P. Music is the fifth studio album by Killer Mike. Released in 2012, the album received critical acclaim for the political nature of the lyrics. The album was the first collaboration between Mike and El-P, who would both form the popular rap duo Run The Jewels in 2013. A very political album, Killer Mike covers multiple different topics during the 45 minute runtime, including police brutality and criticizing former US president Ronald Reagan.

Actually, can we talk about ... read more

depechemode4lif
77

Killer Mike has a powerful and in your face presence on RAP Music. I will say some of the beats are a bit outtdated sounding, but most rule

88

dirty south + nerd rap

bosskili1
86

I mean with El-P production almost everything sounds better. But regardless this also has some great flows and what I appreciate most is that it doesn't sound like Rtj. Rather it's just a straight-up Southern Hip-Hop album, with modern-sounding production. Great stuff.

BuyAS
85

pure fire

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Track List

1Big Beast
3:54
92
2Untitled
3:53
feat. Scar
86
3Go!
1:54
85
4Southern Fried
4:37
87
5JoJo's Chillin
2:57
83
6Reagan
4:09
92
7Don't Die
4:08
90
8Ghetto Gospel
4:40
84
9Butane (Champion's Anthem)
3:18
feat. El-P
90
10Anywhere But Here
3:31
85
11Willie Burke Sherwood
4:23
88
12R.A.P. Music
4:26
95
Total Length: 45 minutes
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Added on: April 8, 2012