![]() If you are a minority in this society, you carry this fight every, single, goddamn day,” he says. “People are frustrated and tired, and that is what this video symbolizes. But he explains that the video seeks to highlight a different aspect of the issue. Mike admits that he’s gotten some negative feedback from people who think “Close Your Eyes” doesn’t show the power imbalance and overpolicing he had protested. Louis stage on the night of the Ferguson grand jury decision in November made headlines. Run the Jewels has been outspoken on social justice issues before. You don’t know which side you are on,” Mike says. You don’t know if you are going to make it or not. When AG described it to me, he said, ‘Mike, it is like purgatory.’ It is almost worst than a hellish existence because you don’t know if you are going up or down. Let’s make it uncomfortable.’ And that is something that, with me and Mike-it just felt right.” Mike elaborates on the video’s imagery: “If you look at me, Zack, and El, we are kind of just like spirits of some sort, just walking through this barren thing. “He said to us, ‘Let’s not avoid the uncomfortableness of this whole thing,'” El-P says. In a statement released with the video, Rojas said that he’d wanted to make “a film that would ignite a valuable and productive conversation about racially motivated violence in this country.” The characters’ struggle, he explained, is meant to be seen as a metaphor for the futility of violence.Įl-P says he and Killer Mike instantly liked Rojas’ vision for the video. Rojas, known for his innovative commercials and videos for artists such as Jack White and Portugal. The song pairs an infectious beat with catchy, politically charged rhymes. “Close Your Eyes (And Count To Fuck),” features former Rage Against The Machine singer Zack De La Rocha, who joins Run The Jewels members El-P and Killer Mike in the beginning of the video. The latest music video from the hip-hop duo Run the Jewels presents a new perspective on racially-based police brutality. Music starts to play as the story starts to unfold: A white cop and a black man are caught in an equally matched, endless struggle against one another. Slowly, he looks up, and appears to have an epiphany. Sun shines through open windows as he tries to catch his breath. Run The Jewels’ RTJ2 is out now on Mass Appeal.Three men silently stalk an abandoned neighborhood. A train whistle sounds in the distance and suddenly, we see another man. Salutes to AG Rojas for his unique take on the subject matter and to Shea and Keith for giving us their all and bringing it to life.” However, there is an opportunity to dialogue and change the way communities are policed in this country. There is no neat solution at the end because there is no neat solution in the real world. “This video represents the futile and exhausting existence of a purgatory-like law enforcement system. “This is a vision of a seemingly never-ending struggle whose participants are pitted against each other by forces originating outside of themselves.” Our goal was to highlight the futility of the violence, not celebrate it.’ They’ve already fought their way past their judgments and learned hatred toward one another. The film begins and it feels like they have been fighting for days, they’re exhausted, not a single punch is thrown, their violence is communicated through clumsy, raw emotion. They’re people – complex, real people and, as such, the power had to shift between them at certain points throughout the story. For me, it was important to write a story that didn’t paint a simplistic portrait of the characters of the Cop and Kid. It’s provocative, and we all knew this, so we were tasked with making something that expressed the intensity of senseless violence without eclipsing our humanity. We had to exploit the lyrics and aggression and emotion of the track, and translate that into a film that would ignite a valuable and productive conversation about racially motivated violence in this country. I felt a sense of responsibility to do just that. “When Run The Jewels sent me this track, I knew we had the opportunity to create a film that means something. ![]() The two eventually find themselves sitting on the black male’s bed, out of breath. They two men literally battle and wrestle in the street, continuing into the young man’s home. The visuals represent the long and exhausting fight between a young black male (Keith Stanfield) and a police officer (Shea Whigham). Run The Jewels team up with Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against The Machine fame for the powerful video “Close Your Eyes (And Count To F**k)”.
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