In 2009 I booed Jay Electronica.
I was at Rock The Bells and I was disappointed that I missed Wale perform live, so when this random nigga from New Orleans with a wooden staff started rapping about oracles and shit I wasn’t having it. I booed him for a while, I know he heard me because I was in the front and the arena wasn’t even a quarter full yet. Later in the day he danced by me and I was so disgusted with how much fun he was having I took 3 steps back. I was such a little shit. Flash forward 2 years later and my homies can’t get over this one song that just dropped. They told me it was “flawless” and “life changing” and I “HAD” to listen to “Exhibit C”. The minute it started I knew I was listening to something special, but I couldn’t get over the fact that just 2 years prior I had dismissed this rapper as trash. To be honest I think my embarrassment stopped me from fully losing myself in the music. Every time I heard the name Jay Electronica I felt dread. I knew he was going to blow up and I knew he was going to have a movie about his career and I KNEW he was gonna have some shitty hipster in a pair of purple DC’s booing him in concert.
Luckily for me, Jay Electronica’s career didn’t go anywhere, well to be fair he got Erykah Badu pregnant and that’s worth like 5 grammys, but he didn’t drop music for a very long time. Years passed, I became less of a hater (started getting laid consistently) and Jay was all but forgotten; a reminder of squandered potential if anything. However as we sit on the edge of a global epidemic, Jay Electronica decided to come back into the spotlight and drop his debut album. So with that lets get into “A Written Testimony”
I shouldn’t have booed him.
Jay Electronica knew he had to prove us all wrong and best believe he did that. With the help of Jay Z (more on this later), this album makes its mark on 2020. Jay Electronica doesn’t rap about trendy shit, he raps from the heart and his heart is wearing a Kufi. This is a pro-black nation of Islam ass album. If you’ve ever wanted to hear what rich woke niggas sound like, listen to this. There’s a lot of black pride mixed with some semi republican leanings. If this album is like if you lit sage while swimming in a pile of gold like Scrooge McDuck. This is the kind of album you listen to when you speak on the evil of white supremacy while laying next to your very white and very rich spouse. It’s really good but it’s weird to hear Jay Elect rap about black pride when he was openly linked with a literal Rothschild. Then again, you can’t truly critique the illuminati if you don’t know these niggas personally. I do give him credit for talking about his therapist openly, niggas have a weird relationship with mental health and the more we talk about it, the less stigma behind it. If Jay Electronica can go to therapy, you niggas can too.
While Jay Electronica surprises in this debut, Jay Z dominates it. Hova is one of, if not, the best rapper alive and he flexes his muscles so casually. Listening to Jigga rap is like watching LeBron on a fast break, you know its gonna be dope and you know Beyonce’s gonna be excited sexually. Jay Z has a mastery with words and its fun to watch him connect with Jay Electronica on the issues that matter in Jay Electronica’s life. Jay Z reminds me of the cool nigga the barbershop who listens to the argument quietly for 30 minutes and then nonchalantly offers a great point that leaves the whole shop nodding in agreement. There’s also a little bit of an edge to Hov on this album, you can tell he was pissed off by everyone calling him a sellout and a coon for his business dealings. His message is pretty much “I’m playing Chess and you niggas have no idea how Chess works”.
This album isn’t going to be for everyone though, this isn’t party music or kickback music, this is “how are we gonna buy back the block music”. This is music you play as your gentrifying new neighbors move in so they know shit is still real. Plus, its only 39 minutes long! Jay Electronica made niggas wait for 10+ years and dropped a 39 minute album with features on almost every track. It’s like if I turned in a great paper late and double spaced between each line and added size 20 font periods. It’s only disappointing because we might have to wait another 10 years for his next release, but if you can get over that it’s not that big of a deal. Plus we all might die in 2020 anyway so who cares what happens 10 years from now?
“A Written Testimony” is a great album that could’ve been a real classic if it was 3 songs longer. I give it 7 Erykah Badu vagina incense sticks out of 9.