This ambitious new video from Run The Jewels is a celebration of resistance. Illuminating Run The Jewels’ ability to combine social commentary and raw, boisterous fun with cameos from Greg Nice, DJ Premier and Rage Against the Machine frontman Zack de la Rocha. Plus helicopters, hot air balloons, and a legion of dancers.
Shot in early March prior to the full impact of Covid-19, the video is a commentary on class divisions and capitalism. Themes that have arguably become prescient since.
“We shot this video only a few weeks before the pandemic hit with no clue as to what the future held. The fact that we got the chance to do it is damn near miraculous in hindsight,” state the duo. “In conceptualizing the video with Brian and Vanessa Beletic, we imagined the world on the day that the struggle of class was finally over. A day that humanity, empathy, and community were victorious over the forces that separate us based on arbitrary systems created by man. This video is a fantasy of waking up on a day that there is no monetary system, no dividing line, no false construct to tell our fellow man that they are less or more than anyone else. Not that people are without, but that the whole meaning of money has vanished. That we have somehow solved our self-created caste system and can now start fresh with love, hope and celebration. It’s a dream of humanity’s V-DAY… and the party we know would pop off.”
In the wake of the pandemic, Run The Jewels have also been sharing free downloadable activity and colouring books. Last week they released a new line of t-shirts as a fundraiser for their tour crew, who are out of work until the duo’s postponed worldwide tour with Rage Against the Machine begins.
Ooh LA LA is lifted from Run The Jewels’ forthcoming album, RTJ4.
