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Critic Reviews
100
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.
12y
91
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.
11y
90
"R.A.P. Music" is an album that is musically and thematically cohesive, succinct, devoid of any filler, and banging from start to finish.
1y
90
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.
14y
90
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.
13y
90
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.
8y
90
R.A.P. Music, the sixth album by from Atlanta firebrand Killer Mike, is a stunning anachronism.
14y
90
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.
14y
90
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.
12y
89
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.
14y
88
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.
14y
86
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.
14y
86
With El-P's help, Killer Mike has produced his first unquestionably great album.
13y
85
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.
13y
85
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.
13y
83
It certainly feels like the culmination of his unusual career.
14y
80
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.
12y
80
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.
5y
80
Killer Mike is the Jäger shot of rap: efficient, acrid and totally devastating.
8y
80
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.
8y
80
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.
6y
80
An inspired hook-up that brings out the best in both contributors.
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3y
80
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.
14y
70
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.
13y
70
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.
11y
50
There is plenty of good poetry waiting below the poverty line; R.A.P. Music ain't it.
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3y
50
The ambition is to be applauded, but half the album’s a grind. And not the good kind.
14y
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
If hip hop has shown anything in its 50+ year existence, it's to expect the unexpected. Killer Mike and El-P teaming up seemed unlikely enough, but nobody could've predicted them becoming the best duo of the last 15 - 20 years. But it all begins with this album right here. Not quite Run the Jewels yet, but serves as a great prelude to their discography. This time with El-P only producing instead of both beatmaking and rapping. El-P's post-apocalyptic, futuristic sound paired with Killer Mike's ... read more
Thought this would be peak based on the great albums of RTJ. Killer Mike on El-P production. I am EXTREMELY disappointed.
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Track List
| 1 | Big Beast 3:54 | 91 |
| 2 | Untitled 3:53 feat. Scar | 85 |
| 3 | Go! 1:54 | 86 |
| 4 | Southern Fried 4:37 | 87 |
| 5 | JoJo's Chillin 2:57 | 81 |
| 6 | Reagan 4:09 | 92 |
| 7 | Don't Die 4:08 | 92 |
| 8 | Ghetto Gospel 4:40 | 82 |
| 9 | Butane (Champion's Anthem) 3:18 feat. El-P | 89 |
| 10 | Anywhere But Here 3:31 feat. Emily Panic | 85 |
| 11 | Willie Burke Sherwood 4:23 | 89 |
| 12 | R.A.P. Music 4:26 | 94 |
Total Length: 45 minutes
Year End Lists
| #3 | / | Exclaim! |
| #5 | / | Earmilk |
| #6 | / | Consequence of Sound |
| #6 | / | Entertainment Weekly |
| #6 | / | PopMatters |
| #8 | / | Pazz & Jop |
| #8 | / | SPIN |
| #9 | / | Cokemachineglow |
| #9 | / | Treble |
| #10 | / | TIME |
| #11 | / | Gorilla vs. Bear |
More Lists
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10mo
dude that first big beast listen is so insane, that song comes out the gate fucking swinging dude
