Even without a hard release date for Run The Jewels 4, El-P and Killer Mike continue the rollout for their next album undaunted. After releasing their unprecedented party track “Ooh La La” with Greg Nice and DJ Premier last month, the duo dropped the video today and despite being a fresh look for the ordinarily aggressive partners-in-rhyme, they infuse it with every bit of their anti-establishment rebel spirit.
While “Ooh La La” is ostensibly a party song, just shooting a bunch of people dancing in a club would be too pedestrian for the Run The Jewels crew. Instead, the people dance in the middle of Wall Street in the aftermath of a hypothetical revolution, burning huge piles of money and passing out champagne bottle to celebrate the downfall of financial institutions and corporations — you know, the ones who just got a $500 billion bailout at the same time as 11 million Americans filed first-time unemployment claims.
The video came accompanied by a statement from the crew, which you can read below.
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.
In conceptualizing the video with our friends Brian and Vanessa Beletic we imagined the world on the day that the age old struggle of class was finally over –a day that humanity, empathy, and community were victorious over the forces that would 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.
Love, RTJ
PS: We’d like to thank everyone who busted their ass to make this happen from directors Brian and Vanessa Beletic to line producer Cat Restrepo to editor Biff Butler to the wonderful folks at The Mill who handled post production, as well as everyone involved in shooting, prepping and executing this video. You guys gave us so much of your energy and talent during this crazy f*cking time to make it all come together and we are truly grateful.
Watch the “Ooh La La” video above.