El-P and Killer Mike have released a black, white and red animated music video for Early (ft. Boots), a track from their last album RTJ2 (Run The Jewels 2), which was released for free in October 2014.
The film starts by painting a graphic picture of a man being arrested on the street in front of his wife and child for just, well, being a black man on a street, before musing on surveillance and depicting prison walls closing in, protests and mass mourning with lighted candles. The video was created by St. Louis art studio Bug & Sluzzy. On releasing the video, El-P tweeted, “me and @KillerMikeGTO have been waiting for the right time to drop this. then we realized that it is (sadly) always the right time. so…”.
me and @KillerMikeGTO have been waiting for the right time to drop this. then we realized that it is (sadly) always the right time. so…
— el-p (@therealelp) May 15, 2015
Run The Jewels’ Killer Mike previously spoke out at a gig just after it was announced that the police responsible for the death of 18-year-old Mike Brown in Ferguson had not been charged for murder, which led to mass riots. You can watch his epic monologue below.