“walking in the snow” by Run The Jewels

Late May into early June put America’s most harrowing flaws on full display. From a pandemic disproportionately ravaging marginalized communities to widening economic inequality to incessant police violence, anger towards institutions serving the white ruling class continued to mount. Enter hardcore hip hop duo Run The Jewels. El-P and Killer Mike released their latest album, RTJ4, June 3, just nine days after the murder of George Floyd sparked nationwide protests.

“F*** it, why wait,” the album announcement read. “The world is infested with b******* so here’s something raw to listen to while you deal with it all.”

The sixth track, “walking in the snow,” certainly fits the description. El-P brings his A-game in terms of meticulous production, as he begins with a menacing guitar riff from Little Shalimar before weaving in a swirling string arrangement and buzzing synth lines that lurk underneath the thumping bass beat. The song is shrouded in ominous undercurrents fitting for its lyrical content.

“Funny fact about a cage, they’re never built for just one group,” El-P warns in the opening verse. “So when that cage is done with them and you still poor, it come for you.”

It’s Killer Mike’s second verse, however, that cements “walking in the snow” as a powerful time capsule of 2020. He unfurls 40 unapologetically fiery bars of commentary on issues ranging from the school-to-prison pipeline (“They promise education, but really they give you tests and scores/And they predictin’ prison population by who scoring the lowest”) to performative activism (“And you sit there in the house on couch and watch it on TV/The most you give’s a Twitter rant and call it a tragedy”). Midway through the verse, he gasps out the final words of his “And you so numb, you watch the cops choke out a man like me/Until my voice goes from a shriek to whisper, ‘I can’t breathe’” couplet, an especially chilling moment in the immediate aftermath of the Floyd killing.

Until you learn that the entire verse was recorded months before Floyd’s death. “walking in the snow” isn’t a reaction to any isolated event; it’s a scathing indictment of this country’s structural underpinnings. Nothing that El-P and Killer Mike rap about is new, and none of it is going to change just because ostensibly ‘woke’ liberals voted the Evil Orange Man™ out of office. 

“All of us serve the same masters, all of us nothin’ but slaves,” Killer Mike proclaims. “Never forget in the story of Jesus, the hero was killed by the state.”