Killer Mike’s emotional soliloquy on police brutality starts St. Louis show with a heavy dose of real

Photos by James Nagel // Written by Mike Frash //

As El-P has pointed out on twitter today, “far as I can tell me and my squad are the only Motherfuckers who fought tooth and nail to get IN to STL Last night.”

Run the Jewels, the dynamic duo of El-P and Killer Mike, are the closest thing America has to some form of political protest in music these days, so it’s only appropriate that one of the biggest breakthrough acts of the year would be performing in St. Louis mere hours after the Ferguson grand jury decided to not charge Michael Brown’s killer, policeman Darren Wilson, with murder.

So as rioting began in nearby Ferguson, and before the National Guard was sent into Missouri, Michael Render took the stage to deliver one of his most powerful speeches ever:

“It’s not about race, it’s not about class it is not about color — it is about what they killed him for. It is about poverty, it is about greed & it is about the war machine…it’s us against the mother fucking machine.

While this must-see speech isn’t too much of a surprise — Killer Mike has made multiple appearances on cable news outlets in the wake of the Michael Brown tragedy and Ferguson protests and Run the Jewels are on our “best stage banter spewing musicians in live music today” list – the content of Mike’s speech should go down in history as the quintessential reaction to the Grand Jury not indicting policeman Darren Wilson for murder. There’s anger, passion and lust for revenge, but ultimately a call for non-violent protest.

El-P and Killer Mike will be donating the proceeds from the forthcoming Meow The Jewels remix project to the families of Michael Brown and other victims of police brutality.

Listen to “Ddfh’ for more on Run the Jewels’ take on police brutality.