Run the Jewels’ El-P will bring his solo records to streaming services for the first time. The rapper’s 2007 LP I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead — originally released via his Def Jux label and long unavailable on streaming services — kicks off the digital reissue campaign Friday.
Throughout 2020, El-P will continue to drop Def Jux albums from his solo catalogs onto DSPs, as well as physical reissues of El-P’s LPs via Fat Possum.
I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead features guests like Trent Reznor, the Mars Volta, Cat Power, Aesop Rock and more.
“This record means a lot to me. Really, it’s a collection of short stories written from multiple perspectives… different characters living in the same confused, askew city of ‘Poisenville.’ No one is right in these stories and no one has the moral high ground but everyone is trying to keep themselves from suffocating under the weight of their own reality and faults,” El-P said of the album in a statement.
“I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead began as what I imagined the city of ‘Poisenville’ was saying to its inhabitants as a retort to being called a ‘city that never sleeps,’ but it ends with the discovery of something bigger than the maze of inner turmoil these characters feel: a resolve to fight for life, even if it’s someone else’s.”
El-P’s last solo album was 2012’s Cancer 4 Cure, after which he aligned with Killer Mike to form Run the Jewels; the duo have released three acclaimed self-titled albums, with Run the Jewels 4 reportedly in the works.