Meow the Jewels has been officially funded for nearly a month, but we didn't have video evidence of El-P and Killer Mike hanging out with creator Sly Jones until now.
Jones, a Phoenix native, discussed the Meow concept in a video with the Phoenix New Times.
"I was just bored, looking through Twitter, and I just thought of El tweaking cat sounds over his soundboard, just annoying as s---," Jones said. "It was just funny as hell."
Jones put his hand on El's shoulder for dramatic effect.
"This dude made it happen, man," Jones said. "He believed in me. When I was ready to quit, he was shooting me texts, like, 'Let's do this.'"
Killer Mike has been less involved in the process than El-P, who had the original idea.
"I was laughing when it got up to $13,000, and then I was kind of giggling when it got up to $20,000," Mike said. "El was like, 'Yo, we might have to do this s---.'"
El said he only needs to actually produce one of the songs.
"Luckily, I've got enough producers on board know, where I've pretty much mapped it out, so I think I only have to do like on," he said. "And everyone else has got to suffer with me. I think I'm gonna do 'Jeopardy,' the first song on the record. 'Jeopardy,' I'm gonna try to recreate with cat sounds. I'm gonna make it as close as I can to the original. It's gonna be challenging."
Check out the interview:
As previously reported, Zola Jesus, Just Blaze, Baauer, Portishead's Geoff Barrow, the Alchemist, Boots, Dan the Automator, and more have to the project.
Just Blaze also agreed to release a kit of all the drums he used from 2001 to 2005 once the goal was reached.
As previously reported, Other than the satisfaction of knowing this thing exists, backers will receive a variety of goodies based on how much they gave, such as a digital copy of the album, Meow The Jewels merch, a bag of MTJ catnip, the opportunity for the backer's cat to be sampled and put on the album, the opportunity to produce one of the tracks, and a limited-edition MTJ autographed by Killer Mike and EL-P (and "maybe a cat").
Check out the album trailer:
