Video: Run The Jewels - Close Your Eyes (And Count To Fuck)

Run The Jewels have come out swinging with a new black and white video for 'Close Your Eyes (And Count To Fuck)'. The track, which is lifted from their latest album RTJ2 and features guest vocals from Zach de la Rocha (Rage Against the Machine), who also cameos in the confrontational clip. Directed by A.G. Rojas, the video features a prolonged physical tussle between white cop and a young black youth, a commentary on "the futile and exhausting existence of a purgatory-like law enforcement system", as Killer Mike puts it. The goose-bump inducing clip is well worth watching right to the end, as it finishes in a rather unexpected way. Take a look below and read more about what Rojas had to say about the concept...

"When Run The Jewels sent me this track, I knew we had the opportunity to create a film that means something. I felt a sense of responsibility to do just that. We had to exploit the lyrics and aggression and emotion of the track, and translate that into a film that would ignite a valuable and productive conversation about racially motivated violence in this country. It's provocative, and we all knew this, so we were tasked with making something that expressed the intensity of senseless violence without eclipsing our humanity. For me, it was important to write a story that didn’t paint a simplistic portrait of the characters of the Cop and Kid. They're not stereotypes. They're people - complex, real people and, as such, the power had to shift between them at certain points throughout the story. The film begins and it feels like they have been fighting for days, they’re exhausted, not a single punch is thrown, their violence is communicated through clumsy, raw emotion. They've already fought their way past their judgments and learned hatred toward one another. Our goal was to highlight the futility of the violence, not celebrate it." A.J Rojas, Director