AOTY 5 - Run The Jewels - Run The Jewels 2
It would be very easy to spend the next seven hundred words spluttering soundbites. Run The Jewels 2, the third album-length collaboration between Killer Mike and El-P, is very, very good. Come back tomorrow for our #4 album of the year!

OK, soundbite spluttering. Firstly, this is an album that is very much of its time. Themes include police brutality and systematic racism. “Lie, Cheat, Steal” features arguably the best hook of the year (sorry Taylor, sorry Laura); Killer Mike uses his final verse to remind us that Donald Sterling exists. Although the “Reagan”-esque imagery of shady figures maintaining the kyriarchy is effective, racist NBA owners are yesterday’s news, and the namecheck of Sterling is only going to sound worse with timeMuch more effective is the prison riot of “Close Your Eyes (And Count To Fuck)”. Jaime’s production is on point, but Mike is the star once more. Surely it would be misleading to call this “conscious rap”, but it’s a fierce, unapologetically honest attack on the industrialised prison system:Now get to pillow torchin', where the fuck the warden?
And when you find him, we don't kill him, we just waterboard him
We killin' them for freedom cause they tortured us for boredom
And even if some good ones die, fuck it, the Lord'll sort 'em“Close Your Eyes” isn’t a Mike solo song though – he’s ably supported by both El-P and Zack de la Rocha, who fires a shot at “global Grand Dragons” and bemoans being “a fella with melanin suspected of felonies”. It’s hard and furious, and a very strong contender for song of the year

Perhaps even harder hitting is “Early”. In the first verse, Killer Mike’s character is racially profiled, and then his wife is shot in front of their son. Emotional stuff at any time, but particularly in late 2014. The non-indictment of the police officers who killed Mike Brown and Eric Garner has kicked America’s awareness of racialized police brutality into the stratosphere. “Early” really resonates – although unfortunately, El-P’s characterisation is just as believable as Mike’s

Second soundbite: the two clearly have a fantastic synergy. They namedrop each other and brag about their collective musical talents so much that you half expect them to start screaming that they ain’t nuthing ta fuck wit. It’s doesn’t matter whether El-P is amazing at crafting beats for Mike, or he’s amazing at flowing over them, because the end result is the same. More than that, they frequently finish each other’s verses – the last line of Mike’s verse sends Jaime scampering away on another tangent. They’re clearly in tune. There’s only really one comparable duo with this kind of understanding, and it’s noticeable that the clammering for Watch The Throne 2 has died away since Jaime and Mike started rapping together

Soundbite the third: their sense of humour allows them to wrap up complex issues in an easily-digestible form. El-P was raised by a single mother who was abused by one of her partners. On “All Due Respect”, Mike expertly parodies the disdain that some stepdads hold for their stepchildren: Hey little buddy, where’s your mommy?
Call me stepdad or Uncle Johnny
Here’s a dollar don’t follow behind me
I gotta go bang out mom and auntieEasily the most enjoyable moment on the album, however, doesn’t come from Killer Mike or El-P. They both deliver fairly forgettable verses about sexual dominance on “Love Again”, before Gangsta Boo of Three 6 Mafia absolutely renegades them. Her portrayal of proud, dominant female sexuality is too rarely seen in hip-hop. It’s boring when boys brag about their bitches, but Boo’s boasts of 24/7 cunnilingus are fresh, sexy, and, at least to my male mind, empowering

Run The Jewels 2 is a truly top class album, tremendously fun, politically alert, and available to the whole world for free. Long may these two incredible talents keep collaborating and producing this kind of next-level hip-hop

- Vesuvius’ favourite book is the thesaurusNow that we've kicked off our top 5, come back tomorrow for #4 and be sure to catch up on the rest of the list so far