Half of hip-hop's Run the Jewels, alongside Killer Mike / FRI 4-24-26 / Children's author Kinney / Acrobat's display / Tubes that go down? / Best-selling author who founded Paris's Théâtre Historique / Hearty soup ingredient in Caribbean cooking / Electronica instruments, informally / Grand Duke of Luxembourg until 2025

Constructor: Andrew Spooner

Relative difficulty: Easy to Easy-Medium (depending on how familiar you are with all the names...)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: EL-P (11D: Half of hip-hop's Run the Jewels, alongside Killer Mike) —

Run the Jewels, also known by the initials RTJ, is an American hip-hop superduo, composed of Brooklyn-based rapper and producer El-P and Atlanta-based rapper Killer Mike. They released their critically acclaimed debut album Run the Jewels as a free download in 2013 and have since released the follow-up albums Run the Jewels 2 (2014), Run the Jewels 3 (2016), and RTJ4 (2020), all of which have been released for free and received critical acclaim. (wikipedia) // Jaime Stuart Meline (born March 2, 1975), better known by the stage name El-P (shortened from his previous stage name El Producto), is an American rapper, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a member of the widely acclaimed Company Flow, and has been a driving force in alternative hip-hop since the 1990s. He is now most widely-known as one half of Run the Jewels. He has produced for rappers including Aesop Rock, Cage, and Mr. Lif. He was a member of The Weathermen and was the co-founder, owner, and CEO of the Definitive Jux record label. // He has released four solo studio albums, two albums with Company Flow, and four albums with Run the Jewels. (wikipedia) 

• • •

Not enough marquee power in this one. I don't really understand which of these longer answers you'd want to build a grid around. A good Friday / Saturday grid will have at least a half a dozen longer answers that sizzle and pop, that seem fresh, that give the answer real life. Today ... this was like drinking flat soda (I don't really drink soda anymore, but I remember ... actually, I did have a Dr. Brown's Cream Soda after a long day of walking around a very hot Manhattan last week and that thing tasted Perfect—not flat at all). The one answer with real juice today was THE LAST STRAW. That's an answer that will stand up and fight for your honor. Where have all the good answers gone and where are all the gods? Where's the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds!? THE LAST STRAW says "here I am!" The rest of these answers? Not really heroes. They don't seem inadequate, they just don't have any star quality. DO NOT DISTURB. DESERT ISLAND. OK, yes, those are solid. But BUSINESSLIKE. That is ... BUSINESSLIKE (loosen up, baby!). And after those four, most of what you got are banks of 8s, and while, again, most of these are up to the task of filling white space without making me want to throw things, almost none of them are making me go, "ooh, nice." I think both the NW and the SW corners are admirably clean, that is what I'll say. This grid has a few things I really like, like a film noir icon (BOGART) and a truly great novel (Anna KARENINA), and, I mean, how doesn't like hand-holding OTTERs? But this is a Friday NYTXW! The bar is high, and this puzzle just doesn't seem to be trying hard enough to clear it.

Lotta names today. Four in the SE alone! (five if you count JENNY, which you probably shouldn't, since that's not how it's clued, but still...). The puzzle felt a little overly enamored of names, though outside of Name Corner you really only have BOGART and ENO and DUMAS ... and EL-P! I laughed so hard at the clue for EL-P, just imagining a huge subsection of my readers going "'ELP! I don't know who this is!" What I really laughed at was the idea that adding "alongside Killer Mike" was going to clarify things for people. Please understand: I own a Run the Jewels LP (EL-P!) and *I* couldn't remember this guy's name today. When I think of all the "rap name" haters out there among the solvers ... I gotta thank this clue and answer for giving me a laugh. I don't think EL-P is unworthy of being in the crossword, but I guarantee you that for the majority of solvers, he's going to be the most obscure thing in the grid (though for me, JEFF and HENRI were more obscure (the idea that I know what any Grand Duke of Luxembourg is called, LOL)). I can't really believe EL-P made it into the grid before OZU, one of the greatest directors in cinematic history. How are all these other three-letter people getting into the grid before OZU? Hang on ... Huh. Wow. OK, turns out EL-P has been in the grid before! Five years ago! And on a Wednesday!!?!? What a day that must have been. What the hell did I say then? Ha, basically, I said everything I just said, only better:

I have to say something about EL-P today, and that is: LOL, wow. I mean ... I own two RTJ albums and *I* couldn't quite remember EL-P's name. I've been doing NYT crosswords for a while, and let me tell you, RUN THE JEWELS is better known than EL-P and the initialism RTJ is better known than EL-P and KILLER MIKE, the other half of RTJ, is way way better known than EL-P, so it is ultra-bizarre that the first thing to enter the NYTXW from the RTJ Universe is somehow EL-P. He's the far lesser known, and white, half of RTJ, yet he's the first to get into the grid. I feel like that's a metaphor for ... something. More power to him, though. I have nothing against him at all. But when I say "LOL" I mean I don't think I've seen a name that is going to be less familiar to the overall NYTXW solving base than EL-P. It's going to look like a mistake to most people. They're just gonna stare and shrug and cross their fingers.

ELP has appeared a few other times in NYTXW history, in different contexts—though both contexts are musical. ELP is the abbr. for the prog rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer, who were apparently a big deal when I was a baby, but I can't name anything they did. Oh, wait, "Lucky Man"? Was that them? Yes! (Not Yes, the other prog rock band, Yes the affirmative exclamation!). "Lucky Man" was ELP's highest-charting song in the U.S. at No. 48. The other way ELP has been clued is via the musical My Fair Lady, as the supposed way that Eliza Doolittle would say "help." "''ELP me, 'enry 'iggins, you're my only 'ope!" (in French, it's 'ENRI 'iggins, of course).

Bullets:

• 20A: Charges (BILLS) — all the crossword's difficulty today came from ambiguous clues on short answers ... or else from the "?" clues on the longer answers. It took me many crosses to see BILLS, and a couple crosses to get CASH (24A: "Green"), and I screwed up and wrote in HEM before FIT (21A: Concern for a seamstress), and couldn't come up with DUMAS's name despite having the "D" and knowing the name was going to be French (I think of DUMAS as a novelist, not a theater person) (23A: Best-selling author who founded Paris's Théâtre Historique). 
• 3D: Tubes that go down? (RIGATONI) — they "go down" in that you eat them. True of most food, I'd imagine. Not my favorite clue.
• 18A: Low volume? (TEASPOON) — because the volume of liquid in a teaspoon is "low" (compared to other standard measurement units). Kinda weak. These "?" clues are not landing the way they oughta. 
• 31A: "The best cheese of its type in the world," per George Orwell (STILTON) — what is "its type?" Semi-soft cheese? English cheese? Blue cheese? Just say it's the best cheese, George. You're usually so good with words.
• 16A: Field for both Martin Luther and Martin Luther King Jr. (THEOLOGY) — "Martin Luther" made me think of this amazing Tweet I saw yesterday (as well as the replies) ...

• 1A: Once-in-a-lifetime events (BIRTHS) — got this right away (though I waited til crosses confirmed it before I wrote it in). This clue is clever precisely because it's misdirective without having to resort to a "?" It's true, you're only born once. Of course, a woman might give birth multiple times in her lifetime ... but the clue is talking about being born, not giving birth. 
• 35D: Acrobat's display (PDF FILES) — ooh, I liked this clue too. This one got me. I definitely wanted something like AGILITY. I had the "D" (from DESERT ISLAND) but when I tried to get the crosses on either side of it—chaos. "This has to be SNEAK UP, but nothing starts 'PD-' Let me try the cross on the other side ... well that's RAF, but ... '-DF'? WTF is going on!?" D'oh!
• 39D: Hearty soup ingredient in Caribbean cooking (OXTAIL) — also a hearty ingredient in this grid. Part of that very nice SW corner. Was able to get this fairly easily from the "X" in AXON
• 47D: Where the Red Delicious apple originated (IOWA) — oh good, now I know who to blame. I call this mealy thing the "garbage apple," in that it tastes like garbage and I want to throw it in the garbage.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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