It features guest appearances from Danny Brown, Joi, Trina, Boots, Tunde Adebimpe, Zack de la Rocha, and Kamasi Washington.

In an interview with Spin, Run the Jewels discussed the meaning of the album's cover art: For us, the RTJ1 hands were about "taking what's yours" – your world, your life, your attitude.

[7] Excerpts from "Legend Has It" were prominently used in the first teaser trailer for the 2018 Marvel movie Black Panther,[8] which premiered during Game 4 of the 2017 NBA Finals and was viewed 89 million times in 24 hours.

[10] In Vice, Robert Christgau said the duo were "funnier, hookier, and kinder as well as brainier and more political" than before,[21] while Chicago Tribune critic Greg Kot called the record "an album that megaphones its restlessness while retaining its wicked sense of fun".

[15] Roisin O'Connor of The Independent said, "Killer Mike and El-P bring typically sharp, visceral observations, chugging beats and superb guest artists onto their most successful studio effort to date".

[17] Sheldon Pearce of Pitchfork said, "It isn't quite as punchy as RTJ2, which was brutish in its tactics, with nonstop bangs and thrills, but RTJ3 is a triumph in its own right that somehow celebrates the success of a seemingly unlikely friendship and mourns the collapse of a nation all at once".

said, "If "bloody", "urgent", "enraged" and "heartening" were enough description to sum up El-P and Killer Mike's latest Run the Jewels album, this review could end here.

But they aren't; this late 2016 LP, along with the duo's various collaborative tracks with several DJs and rappers all year, have officially placed RTJ high on the shelf of the "hard to describe" category".

[24] Scott Glaysher of XXL said, "In the grand scheme of rap music, Killer Mike and El-P get more and more niche with each project they release together and this new album is no different.

[25] Jesse Cataldo of Slant Magazine said, "The level of discourse on Run the Jewels 3 may be higher than your standard hip-hop grandstanding, and the references may be current and the beats may be more intense, but the album remains too entrenched in the grammar of the past to ever feel entirely fresh".