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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
R.A.P. Music, the sixth album by from Atlanta firebrand Killer Mike, is a stunning anachronism.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
With El-P's help, Killer Mike has produced his first unquestionably great album.
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.
It certainly feels like the culmination of his unusual career.
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.
An inspired hook-up that brings out the best in both contributors.
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.
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.
There is plenty of good poetry waiting below the poverty line; R.A.P. Music ain't it.
The ambition is to be applauded, but half the album’s a grind. And not the good kind.
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.
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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
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.
1 | Big Beast 3:54 | 92 |
2 | Untitled 3:53 feat. Scar | 86 |
3 | Go! 1:54 | 85 |
4 | Southern Fried 4:37 | 87 |
5 | JoJo's Chillin 2:57 | 83 |
6 | Reagan 4:09 | 92 |
7 | Don't Die 4:08 | 90 |
8 | Ghetto Gospel 4:40 | 84 |
9 | Butane (Champion's Anthem) 3:18 feat. El-P | 90 |
10 | Anywhere But Here 3:31 feat. Emily Panic | 85 |
11 | Willie Burke Sherwood 4:23 | 88 |
12 | R.A.P. Music 4:26 | 95 |
#3 | / | Exclaim! |
#5 | / | Earmilk |
#6 | / | Consequence of Sound |
#6 | / | Entertainment Weekly |
#6 | / | PopMatters |
#8 | / | Pazz & Jop |
#8 | / | SPIN |
#9 | / | Cokemachineglow |
#9 | / | Treble |
#10 | / | TIME |