Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	85/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
The A.V. Club	B+
Chicago Tribune
The Irish Times
NME	5/10
Pitchfork Media	8.6/10
Q
Rolling Stone
Spin	9/10
XXL	4/5

R.A.P. Music is the fifth studio album by American hip hop recording artist Killer Mike. It was released on May 15, 2012, via Williams Street Records. The word R.A.P. in the album's title is an acronym for Rebellious African People. The album's production was handled entirely by Brooklyn-based hip-hop producer El-P, and is the first collaborative project by Killer Mike and El-P. Killer Mike and El-P have gone on to form the group Run The Jewels and release three studio albums together.

R.A.P. Music received widespread acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 85, based on 27 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim". Among those who reviewed the album positively was AllMusic editor David Jeffries, who stated "rapper Killer Mike already had an incredibly strong discography before R.A.P. Music landed [...] Revolutionary stuff and absolutely no fluff, R.A.P. Music is outstanding." Evan Rytlewski of The A.V. Club praised the album's production and Mike's politically charged lyrics and wrote "[R.A.P. Music] feels like the culmination of his unusual career."Pitchfork Media's Ian Cohen designated it "Best New Music" and noted that "even if R.A.P. Music doesn't break enough rules or have enough of a platform to reach the levels of Fear of a Black Planet or Straight Outta Compton or Death Certificate . . . it does come off as the kind of powerful mid-career album those acts should've been able to make as hip-hop's elder spokesmen". Christopher Weingarten of Spin wrote: "A child of the '80s and a student of the Internet, Killer Mike is as exciting and wildly unclassifiable as hip-hop gets: New York noise and country shit, nods to when rap was punk and crunk was pop, Ice Cube before he needed hooks, David Banner before he needed to whisper, and Willie D before he needed anybody."Sputnikmusic staff Sobhi Youssef praised El-P's synth-bass-heavy production and Mike's lyricism, and praised the album as "a hip-hop masterpiece to be remembered for years to come".

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