Column: Run The Jewels’ cat-rap album can be fun and serious all at once

To all the 45-year-old dads who hated my Kanye column: You’re going to hate this column even more. This week, we’re talking about rap albums remixed with cat meows.

Run the Jewels’ newest album, Meow the Jewels, is a remixed version of their 2014 album, Run the Jewels 2, a lauded LP that was Rolling Stone’s best rap album of 2014. The album is a product of a joke; during the presale of their album, Run the Jewels offered the cat-ified version for $45,100. This sparked an impromptu Kickstarter, in which fans made that dream a reality by raising literally thousands of dollars for a cat-rap album.

Inspired by greatness, Run the Jewels dropped this album for free on Monday.

This isn’t just any cat-rap album, though. The powerful lyrics about police brutality in their classic insult-laden throwback style are layered over cat-infused beats ranging from soft meows to angry growls. Hip-hop elites like Massive Attack and Snoop Dogg jumped on the remix when they heard what the project was about: The profits from the vinyl-released version are being donated to victims of police brutality.

This new album is nonsense with a purr-pose, and I love it.

That’s because it’s possible for silliness to be intelligent. It’s possible to raise awareness and money for a serious issue in a way that’s fun and ridiculous.

It’s possible to create a media frenzy to draw attention to an album that already speaks about important issues.

I try to use this idea in my columns and — as an extension — as a person, because fun is fun. If we live in an age where we have access to ideas constantly, why wouldn’t you want to make your ideas stand out?

Using humor in a ridiculous way is an effective method of being heard, and it’s a way of making that message fun.

And Meow the Jewels is definitely a way to make a message fun.