10/19: Meow the Jewels

“So fuck you fuckboys forever, I hope I said it politely.”

How, one might wonder, can an album produced entirely with beats made from cat noises be anything more that a joke? It can’t possibly be that good, right? I mean, it’s just remixes of their last album… done with cat beats… 

Well, Meow the Jewels, Run the Jewels’ latest masterpiece, is undeniably nothing short of a revolutionary album. 

While El-P admits to not being happy about it initially, he decided to go ahead with the album, realizing that it was a fantastic opportunity to "give back to people and do something for charity." Not only is this a great philanthropical project; it is a beautifully crafted Internet masterpiece.

Meow the Jewels is being given away for free here. This move has been made by many artists before, from Jeff Rosenstock’s Internet/donation-based label Quote Unquote Records to Radiohead’s In Rainbows to Harvey Danger’s Little by Little. In a music world dominated by arguments over whether or not it's okay to pirate music, Run the Jewels made the move to give away the album for nothing; they also are releasing a one-time vinyl copy of the album,  with all of the profits going to charity.

The project was completely Kickstarter funded. The kicker (hehe): it wasn’t created by Run the Jewels themselves—though it stemmed from the joke made in their own Kickstarter project for Run the Jewels 2—it was created by a fan or a group of fans who wanted to see Meow the Jewels come to life. The goal of the Kickstarter was to raise the $45,100 needed to make Meow the Jewels happen, but instead a total of 2,828 backers managed to pledge $65,783 - $20,000 more than the project's goal. The Kickstarter had the power to make Meow the Jewels a reality.

Meow the Jewels brings together so many producers, such as Just Blaze and BOOTS, to attempt to remix Run the Jewels 2 with only cat sounds. Hip-hop is no stranger to collaborations, but these producers were only given cat noises to work with; as El-P himself said, "It was a great leveler: no one is particularly great at producing a record with cat sounds." The Internet allowed these producers to work with a plethora of cat sounds to craft their remixed versions of the songs; they didn’t have to fly out to any city in order to collaborate with Run the Jewels, and the Internet allowed them to quickly gather a plethora of cat sounds to work with.

As evidenced by their many music videos and other videos, Run the Jewels are no strangers to the Internet and Internet culture. They’re always using it to their advantage, consistently updating their Twitter pages and interacting with fans. More than just their music, everything about them is revolutionary: their interactions with fans, their willingness to continue with a project that stemmed from a joke, their constantly staying relevant and doing awesome things (like this performance with TV on the Radio); Killer Mike and El-P will undoubtedly always find ways to change things up and keep music interesting.

Mlynar, Phillip. "EL-P On The New Cat-Rap Classic Meow The Jewels: "It's A Lonely And Strange Thing"" The Concourse. Web. 17 Oct. 2015.