oohlala(feat.GregNice&DJPremier)
Run The Jewels, El-P, Killer Mike, DJ Premier, Greg Nice
RTJ4
Run The Jewels unleash gleeful chaos with hip-hop royalty riding shotgun.
Uh, hey (oh, shit)
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (hey)
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (hey)
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (let's go)
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui
Ooh, la-la
Lookin' for M's like I lost a friend
Jump out of my bed like, "Where that bread?"
You gon' hold a egg, waiter bring the check
When we talk, we Kalashnikov, keep us in your thoughts
Fully dressed at the crack of dawn, weapons letting off
I can hear them from the block, see them creeping through the fog
Season's greetings, now feeding season can start, oh, my god!
Look alive, lookin' like I live life on the crooked line
Doin' fine, you want maximum stupid, I am the guy
First of all, fuck the fuckin' law, we is fuckin' raw
Steak tartare, oysters on the half-shell, sushi bar
Life a bitch, and the pussy fish, still fucked her raw
I'm a dog, I'm a dirty dog, hahahaha
Ol' dirty bastard, go in your jaw, shimmy, shimmy, ya
Got the semi in the hemi, go and gimme, gimme, ya
Pugilistic, my linguistics are Jeru the Damaja
And I rap it pornographic, bitch, set up the camera
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (hey)
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (ah, oui oui)
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (got some weed, got some weed)
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (got some weed, got some, ayy)
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (I need a bottle of Moët, ho, come on)
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (what's up?)
You covet disruption, I got you covered, I'm bustin' (bustin')
My brother's a runner, he's crushin', it's no discussion (discussion)
I used to be munchkin, I wasn't 'posed to be nothin' (nothin')
Y'all fuckers corrupted, or up to somethin disgustin'
My pockets are plump for the season, I love to cuff 'em
I'ma afraid of nothin' but nothin', the same as somethin'
Warmongers are dumpin' a pointed click at your pumpkin (look out)
You're somethin' scrumptious, so put your kids in the oven
Fuck a king or queen and all of their loyal subjects
I'll pull my penis out and I piss on their shoes in public
People, we the pirates, the pride of this great republic
No matter what you order, mo'fucka, we're what you're stuck wit'
I used to love Bruce, but livin' my vida loca
Help me understand, I'm probably more of a Joker
When we usher in chaos, just know that we did it smilin'
Hannibal's on this island, inmates run the asylum
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (hey)
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (hey)
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (hey)
Ooh, la-la
DJ, DJ
Ooh, la-la
Ooh, la, la, la, la
Ooh, ooh
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui
Ooh, la, la, la, la, la
Ah, oui, ah, oui, ah
Ah, ah, ah, oui, oui
Uh, hey (oh, shit)
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (hey)
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (hey)
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (let's go)
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui
Ooh, la-la
Lookin' for M's like I lost a friend
Jump out of my bed like, "Where that bread?"
You gon' hold a egg, waiter bring the check
When we talk, we Kalashnikov, keep us in your thoughts
Fully dressed at the crack of dawn, weapons letting off
I can hear them from the block, see them creeping through the fog
Season's greetings, now feeding season can start, oh, my god!
Look alive, lookin' like I live life on the crooked line
Doin' fine, you want maximum stupid, I am the guy
First of all, fuck the fuckin' law, we is fuckin' raw
Steak tartare, oysters on the half-shell, sushi bar
Life a bitch, and the pussy fish, still fucked her raw
I'm a dog, I'm a dirty dog, hahahaha
Ol' dirty bastard, go in your jaw, shimmy, shimmy, ya
Got the semi in the hemi, go and gimme, gimme, ya
Pugilistic, my linguistics are Jeru the Damaja
And I rap it pornographic, bitch, set up the camera
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (hey)
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (ah, oui oui)
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (got some weed, got some weed)
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (got some weed, got some, ayy)
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (I need a bottle of Moët, ho, come on)
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (what's up?)
You covet disruption, I got you covered, I'm bustin' (bustin')
My brother's a runner, he's crushin', it's no discussion (discussion)
I used to be munchkin, I wasn't 'posed to be nothin' (nothin')
Y'all fuckers corrupted, or up to somethin disgustin'
My pockets are plump for the season, I love to cuff 'em
I'ma afraid of nothin' but nothin', the same as somethin'
Warmongers are dumpin' a pointed click at your pumpkin (look out)
You're somethin' scrumptious, so put your kids in the oven
Fuck a king or queen and all of their loyal subjects
I'll pull my penis out and I piss on their shoes in public
People, we the pirates, the pride of this great republic
No matter what you order, mo'fucka, we're what you're stuck wit'
I used to love Bruce, but livin' my vida loca
Help me understand, I'm probably more of a Joker
When we usher in chaos, just know that we did it smilin'
Hannibal's on this island, inmates run the asylum
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (hey)
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (hey)
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui (hey)
Ooh, la-la
DJ, DJ
Ooh, la-la
Ooh, la, la, la, la
Ooh, ooh
Ooh, la-la, ah, oui-oui
Ooh, la, la, la, la, la
Ah, oui, ah, oui, ah
Ah, ah, ah, oui, oui
“Run The Jewels unleash gleeful chaos with hip-hop royalty riding shotgun.”
By the time Run The Jewels began assembling what would become RTJ4, Jaime Meline (El-P) and Michael Render (Killer Mike) had already cemented themselves as the most electrifying duo in modern hip-hop.
But the album's gestation — largely completed before the world caught fire in 2020 — carried a prophetic weight that even its creators couldn't have anticipated.
"ooh la la" was born from a deceptively simple premise: what if you built a track around an irresistible, almost childlike hook, then filled it with the most audacious, unhinged bars either MC could muster?
The answer required reaching back into hip-hop's golden-age pantheon, enlisting two legends whose names alone signal authenticity — Greg Nice of Nice & Smooth and the incomparable DJ Premier.
The production is a masterclass in controlled detonation.
El-P, working primarily out of his home studio setup, constructs a beat that sits at a deceptive 120 BPM in C major — a tempo and key combination that feels simultaneously relaxed and coiled, like a spring about to release.
The energy and valence readings both hover at a perfect midpoint, and that tension is the track's secret weapon: it never fully surrenders to euphoria, nor does it descend into menace.
DJ Premier's contribution is unmistakable — those signature scratches that punctuate the outro like a DJ booth sermon, cutting and reassembling the vocal fragments into something transcendent.
Greg Nice's interpolation of his own classic "Ooh La La" hook from the 1989 Nice & Smooth track provides the melodic scaffolding, transforming a piece of late-'80s party rap DNA into something that feels both nostalgic and dangerously contemporary.
Lyrically, "ooh la la" is Run The Jewels at their most gleefully anarchic.
Killer Mike opens with a torrent of hustler imagery — "Lookin' for M's like I lost a friend" — before cascading through references to Kalashnikovs, Ol' Dirty Bastard, and Jeru the Damaja, each allusion a love letter to hip-hop's lineage wrapped in braggadocio.
His verse is a virtuosic display of code-switching: one moment he's ordering oysters on the half-shell, the next he's channeling the raw id of '90s New York rap.
El-P's verse pivots to something darker and more philosophical beneath its surface bravado.
"I used to love Bruce, but livin' my vida loca / Help me understand, I'm probably more of a Joker" is a startling admission — the abandonment of heroic idealism for chaotic truth-telling.
His closing image of Hannibal on an island, inmates running the asylum, reads as both comic-book fantasy and searing political commentary, a duality Run The Jewels has always navigated with preternatural skill.
Released as a single on March 22, 2020 — just as the COVID-19 pandemic was reshaping daily life across the globe — "ooh la la" landed with the force of a cultural Molotov cocktail.
The accompanying music video, directed by Chris Hopewell using stop-motion animation, depicted a surreal revolution in which the working class literally eats the rich, its imagery proving almost unbearably prescient as protests over racial injustice and economic inequality erupted worldwide months later.
RTJ4 itself was released two days early, on June 3, 2020, as a free download in solidarity with the George Floyd protests.
The album debuted at number ten on the Billboard 200, and "ooh la la" became one of its most streamed tracks, embraced equally by longtime hip-hop heads who recognized the Greg Nice sample and younger listeners discovering Run The Jewels' particular brand of righteous fury for the first time.
The track's cultural afterlife has been remarkable.
It was featured prominently in the FIFA 21 soundtrack, introducing it to millions of gamers worldwide, and became a staple of sports arena playlists, its hook proving as irresistible in a stadium as in headphones.
The song also appeared in the Marvel film "Venom: Let There Be Carnage" trailer, further cementing its crossover appeal.
Critics frequently cited it as a standout on RTJ4, with Pitchfork, NME, and Rolling Stone all praising the track's ability to balance pure fun with subversive intent.
In an era when hip-hop collaborations often feel transactional, the union of two generations here — Greg Nice and Premier representing the late-'80s and '90s golden age, El-P and Killer Mike carrying the torch into a fractured present — felt genuinely meaningful.
"ooh la la" endures because it captures something essential about Run The Jewels' project: the belief that resistance and joy are not opposites but allies.
In a catalog full of bangers that double as manifestos, this track stands out for its sheer exuberance — the way it makes you want to dance even as it describes a world teetering on the edge.
It is a party record for the apocalypse, a golden-age homage that refuses to be merely nostalgic, and a reminder that when Killer Mike and El-P lock in together, with legends like Premier and Greg Nice amplifying the signal, the result is something that transcends genre and generation.
Pressed into this vinyl, the needle drops and that hook spirals outward — ooh la la, ah, oui oui — an incantation that sounds like freedom refusing to ask permission.
