In Run The Jewels‘ new interview with Rick Rubin (with whom they have been recording Run The Jewels 4 at Shangri-La studios) on the legendary producer’s Broken Record podcast, Killer Mike explains how he got a line about Outkast on the new album wrong and why he won’t fix it. Late in the discussion of their new album, El-P brings up Mike’s participation in Bone Crusher’s 2003 crunk classic “Never Scared,” prompting Mike to reminisce about his place in hip-hop history alongside Southern legends like Scarface and Outkast.
They talk about how listening to their old music makes them wish they could go back and make changes. El-P points out that making technical changes may “fix” a record, but cause it to lose something special in the process, which sparks Mike’s recollection of recording an inaccurate Outkast reference on one of their new records but refuses to say what the line was, even when needled by El-P.
“It named the members of Outkast — and it expanded the membership,” he admits. “But it’s dope! And I do not want to change it because it’s so dope.” El-P seems to know exactly which line it is, replying, “I was wondering about that.” Killer Mike is no stranger to getting things wrong and owning his mistakes, so it’s a cool tidbit to think about — and something to look forward to on the album, which El-P says is complete and “hard as f*ck.” Ironically, after he tweeted that, Mike joked that he’d like to make some changes. Maybe he changed his mind.
Listen to Run The Jewels’ full interview with Rick Rubin above.
