Early

is a clear example of hip/hop being a form of resistance against police

brutality as Run the Jewels uses both powerful imagery and vivid language in a
artistic package to get their message across.
The first verse Killer Mike talks about an encounter with a police officer,
which paints a very vivid picture of the events, which lead to his Queen or wife to
be shot. The real hard-hitting instrument is the drum that hits the listener right after
the line My life changed with that sound. This drum is clearly louder than the
previous drums and rings the listeners ears. This moment of intensity most likely
represents the gunshot, as gunshots tend to ring peoples ears. Why did Run the
Jewels choose a hard hitting drum rather than a actual gun shot? Harvard Professor
Marcyliena Morgan implies in her essay Hip-Hop & the Global Imprint of a Black
Cultural Form that hip/hop integrates artistry to protest socially constructed
racial identity (Marcyliena 177). She supports this by quoting rappers like Public
Enemy that often use strong language over a hard hitting beat to pass on the
message of equality, more specially equality for the African American community.
She points out how this art form can be powerful especially for the youth as the
language invokes thought about authority and the limits of power. Run the Jewels
commonly use similar, yet unique, powerful explicit descriptions to get an emotional
response out of their listeners who are mostly young people. Run the Jewels use this
power over the youth to get their issue of police related shooting of minorities
across to not only black youth, but white youth as well. The previous verse is fast
paced and scary, as Killer Mike describes a very violent encounter, so in fact the

listeners did not need the gunshot, as the audience listens to the lyrical art they
know what is about to happen to Killer Mikes Queen after the first verse.

This leads us to the hook of the song. Most of the song is fast paced and has

an edgy tone in the song. The hook slows down the song significantly and the tone
changes from edgy to mournful. The hook happens right after Killer Mikes Queen
gets presumably shot which fits the tone of pain and suffering. This anomaly in the
song tries to invoke emotion and empathy for Killer Mike because the hook has a
softer more emotional side of the song that represents real human suffering. The
hook tries to grabs the listeners attention this way to give the listener a window
into Killer Mikes reality. Killer Mike tries to reach anybody who listens to this song
by trying to make others understand his side of the story. Christopher Malone a
political science professor states in his article, The Organic Organizer that hip/hop
reaches across a multitude of people and is an example of participation in the
democratic process (Malone 532). To back up his statements he brings up examples
of hip/hop being used in other countries to protest injustices in their governments
like Egyptian hip/hop artist El General who criticized his government in 2011. His
point was to prove that hip/hop is just about girls and alcohol, but is used as a form
of resistance against oppressive groups. The hook hits the listener with both the
immediate feeling of empathy for Killer Mike, but also anger that this terrible thing
has happened to an everyday human being.