Do you both see an impending shift in the music industry because of the effects of coronavirus?

Killer Mike: I pay attention to just Run the Jewels. There's so many different pathways to success now. There's the music pathways where everything is in clothes. Travis [Scott] and them do a great job of that over there. There's the other pathway—the younger kids are going directly through SoundCloud, where essentially they don't need a bigger company. They're growing their audiences themselves. NBA YoungBoy's been able to dominate through using YouTube and things of that nature.

And what I like about Run the Jewels is that we give you a few different ways. If you want hard copies, you have the ability to get a limited amount of CDs. Wax has been incredibly good for us and we put a lot into the artwork for them. Streaming has been good to us. But, we're a live show band. We're a rap group almost masquerading in the rock world because we depend on the live show and merchandise.

El-P: We also give away our music for free.

Killer Mike: For me, I don't really think so much about what the industry is doing so much as there are so many options for an artist to do themselves now. I appreciate, interestingly enough, something Azealia Banks said: "How can you own something you can't physically hold?" I think that we're gonna see a growth to [vinyl], which we've already seen. And I think, to some degree, you're gonna see a return to tangible things like CDs.

Like, when Netflix crashed the other night, my wife and I looked at each other like, "Maybe we shouldn't have given up the DVD player." [Laughs.] I think we may see a return, or a renaissance or nostalgia-like effect, to actually holding something physical in your hand.

El-P: You know, maybe I shouldn't have given up all my Summer Jam and Rap City compilations. [Laughs.]

Everyone who's in this business, who's on the creative end, is in this business because they need this shit. They need to be a part of it. They need to express themselves. So, in times like this, everyone's gonna run and start using the tools that are actually there for us already, and really start trying to maximize them. You see everybody right now trying to be like, "Ok, what can I do with this?" Instagram is damn near thought of as a public utility, but what can I do with this to connect with people?

You see shit emerging like with D-Nice—which to me is the most amazing story so far in terms of the entertainment business. This dude who came up under BDP, one of the illest rap groups in the world in, like, 1989 [laughs] and who I, personally, love. And all of a sudden—because of this situation and people needing to connect and him using technology—he's the number one DJ in the world, arguably. Shit like that is really interesting and beautiful to me.

The fact of the matter is that the delivery service—the way it happens, the business and all that shit—it never really mattered to the truth of the relationship between the fans and the artist. It only matters to the people in there who are trying to make money. That's it. The rest of it really isn't that interesting. It's like, can we still connect with you? Can we still put a smile on your face? Can we still make a living doing what we love?