Is Killer Mike’s “Job Well Done” the Hardest Verse of the Year? Posted by Nathan S. on 07/15/13 | Filed under Debates, El-P, Killer Mike, Run The Jewels

"I'm so motherfuckin' grimy / So mutherfuckin' greedy, gritty..."

As I talked about on the last podcast, when an album of the stature of a "Yeezus" or "Magna Carta Holy Grail" drops, it's literally my job to listen to that shit on repeat until every possible interesting angle on it is exhausted.

But the true test of an album's dopeness is what you listen to when you don't have to. When all the hype and marketing campaigns and hashtags have died down and it's just you in your car on a long drive, what do you put on? For me, the answer over the last few weeks had consistently been "Run The Jewels", and it's just now that I've heard it enough to start noticing some of it's finer points like, say, HOLY SWEET BABY JESUS KILLER MIKE'S VERSE ON "JOB WELL DONE" IS HARD.

In fact, I've been thinking things over for the last couple days, and I think I'm ready to call it the hardest verse of the year. But if I've learned anything, it's that even my genius scotch-filled brain isn't capable of knowing, or remembering, everything that's dropped over the last seven months. So, as always, I thought I'd open things up for discussion.

First, some ground rules. Like porn, "hard" is one of those descriptors that's impossible to define - I know it when I hear it. It's more of a feeling than a definition, a feeling that makes you want to punch a kitten, flip over a police car and just generally act like The Incredible Hulk on bath salts. In addition, I'd throw in that for a verse to truly be hard, you have to be at least a little afraid of the rapper. If that dude came walking at you, spitting that verse, you'd start seriously considering running. (I'm realizing as I write this that while hardest beat is a separate discussion, it's obviously a factor. You can spit as hard as you want, if you're doing it over a Katy Perry instrumental, you're gonna sound soft. So it's a factor...)

Got it? Good.

Now onto the case for Mike on "Job Well Done". While the beginning of his opening verse lends some hints of what's to come, it's not truly until about the :28 mark that things start to get pistachios. The fucking aggression in his voice when he says, "And I take gettin left off your fuck list personal," is just next level, that "wooo" ad-lib that follows is perfect, and from there into the Mike Tyson and momma titty-biting section, it's just a carnival of upppercuts.

Ultimately this pick is personal and subjective, some shit just hits you and some shit doesn't, but on the real, if you aren't at least willing to admit that Mike on "Job Well Done" is in the hardest verse of the year discussion, you go tell him. To his face. Yeah, that's what I thought. I rest my case.

Stream of "Job Well Done" is below (track #6), along with the full album because fuck it, this album is dope enough to deserve a full listen if you haven't already heard it. Have at it RefinedHype Nation, who you got for the hardest verse of the year (so far)?

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