My Gut Reaction: Jay Electronica - A Written Testimony (March 13, 2020)

Jay Electronica’s long-awaited debut album, A Written Testimony, coincidentally dropped just after the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic, which resulted in a lot of unplanned self-isolation and quarantining (stay safe and wash your hands), which, in a way, is the absolute best thing to happen to the guy, since hip hop heads are likely giving A Written Testimony far more spins than they normally would have if we were able to live our lives under normal circumstances.

Obviously I’m not saying Jay Electronica is using the pandemic as a marketing tool. That would be irresponsible of me. But you can’t argue that he isn’t benefiting from everyone hanging out around the house, since A Written Testimony isn’t exactly the type of album one would reach for while cruising around the city. As the kids would say, it isn’t a “bop”.

But is it any good?  Well, that’s what this review is for.

New Orleans-born rapper-slash-producer Timothy Elpadaro Thedford, professionally known as Jay Electronica, has grown into something of an urban legend over the past decade-plus, appearing when you least expect it to drop a hot verse or two (see: the 2013 Big Sean non-album track “Control”) before retreating back into his foxhole. He released a few loose songs and EPs independently, stumbling upon critical acclaim in 2007 with his "Act 1: Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge)", a fifteen-minute song (presented in five parts) built upon different sections of composer Jon Brion’s score for the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Two years later, he unleashed the Just Blaze-produced “Exhibit C” onto the world, which quickly became known for being one of the most lyrical examples of “conscious rap” the sub-genre had ever generated.

After a bidding war involving Puff Daddy’s Bad Boy Records and Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, Electronica ultimately ended up signing with Hova’s brand, and his debut full-length, Act II: Patents of Nobility, was plotted out for a 2010 release, with a single, “Shiny Suit Theory”, hitting the Interweb to mild acclaim. However, surprising absolutely nobody given Jay-Z’s lack of “conscious rapper” credentials and the man’s own erratic recording schedule, promised release dates came and went. To soothe the masses (“the masses” being “the small but loyal group of fans who eagerly awaited a Jay Electronica project, since it’s not like he had broken through to the mainstream or anything, which a lot of people who only pay attention to hip hop seem to forget, there’s a much bigger world out there, you two”), a blogger put together a compilation of previously-released tracks called What the Fuck is a Jay Electronica?, which was shared so many times that its origins as a mixtape were overridden by hip hop snobs who claimed it to be Electronica’s first “true” album when, in fact, his actual debut album was still to come.

Electronica turned in Act II: Patents of Nobility, but Roc Nation never saw fit to release it. To this day, nobody has claimed to know the true reason why the album remains in a vault, but it’s likely that it was the type of project that Jay-Z wasn’t sure how to market, as he’s the type of businessman who likes to get a return on his investment. So the man kind of vanished into the hip hop crowd, emerging as needed to keep his name and his inadvertent legend alive.

Earlier this year, Electronica took to Twitter to drop a surprise announcement: his new debut album, A Written Testimony, would see release imminently. Recorded in forty days, it was not a reworked version of Act II: Patents of Nobility, but supposedly an all-new project. Hip hop heads immediately grew excited for the possibilities, but many others looked at the announcement with skepticism: we’d been fooled before, why should we believe you now? But, lo and behold, A Written Testimony actually came out when he said it would, which is definitely a point in Electronica’s favor, since hip hop is a musical genre where artists are notorious for bringing up projects and then doing absolutely nothing to bring them into existence.

A Written Testimony consists of ten tracks, eight of which feature Electronica’s label boss Jay-Z, whose presence felt to me less like, “let’s make this Watch the Throne 2” and more “lemme make sure my employee actually does their fucking job and releases an album this time.” I never pictured Hov to be a micromanager, but it’s his money on the line, I guess. Producer Just Blaze, an early champion of Electronica’s, is nowhere to be found: instead, our host produces most of the project on his own, with a handful of others invited to contribute as necessary.

(I’m listing Jay-Z’s feature appearances even though they sneak by uncredited on the proper album.)

1. THE OVERWHELMING EVENT

If it took you over ten years to release your ten-track debut album, you would of course kick it off with a rap album intro that features zero rapping. (Although I should commend Electronica for not succumbing to current pressures in the music industry, choosing instead to create an album experience, I suppose.) Sound bites containing the voice of Louis Farrakhan fill the room, proclaiming that “the black people of America are the real children of Israel”, but while our host has always worn his Muslim faith proudly on his chest, I, like you, just want to hear the motherfucking music.

2. GHOST OF SOULJA SLIM (FEAT. JAY-Z)

Although this track also starts off with a snippet yanked from a Farrakhan speech, it’s entirely unrelated to “The Overwhelming Event”, and I appreciate how our host made an effort to distance the two from one another. Also, this shit bangs. “Ghost of Soulja Slim”, like the preceding track, is a Jay Electronica production, but unlike the dramatic intro music, which was subtle by comparison, this song grabs you by the collar and shakes the shit out of your very soul.  

 

Hilariously, the first verse of A Written Testimony comes from motherfucking Jay-Z and not our host – dude has to be trolling his fanbase at this point, right? I mean, you waited ten years, what’s another minute, am I right?

Not that anyone should be upset by this turn of events, though. Electronica’s employer delivers flames, the type we haven’t heard from the man in quite some time (aside from a few of his infrequent cameos of late – his appearance on that last Meek Mill album comes to mind). It is weird to hear Jay-Z be the reason why the song is entitled “Ghost of Soulja Slim” in the first place, but so be it: the billionaire’s boasts and threats (“I could never sell my soul, they sold they soul to me”; "Drop you off in a rival hood, you rather be arrested”; hell, his very first bar, “Next time they bring up the gods, you gon’ respect us” is a pretty goddamn great way to start any album) come at a point when none of us believed he still had it in him, and he. Sounds. Good. Deal with it, you two. Our host chimes in with a verse of his own, of course, praising his label boss, referencing Black Panther as a way for listeners to decipher just how recently this was recorded, and, in an unexpected twist, poking a little fun at himself (“I bet you a Rothchild I get a bang for my dollar”). Our host’s flow sounds virtually unchanged from the early work that secured his critical acclaim in the first place, which is a plus, and his beat is engaging as shit. Huh.

3. THE BLINDING (FEAT. TRAVIS SCOTT & JAY-Z)

There are four credited producers on “The Blinding”, which is three too many, since none of them manage to provide our host with any of their respective signature sounds, aside from Hit-Boy, whose drop at least appears within the (terrible) mix. G. Ry, araabMUZIK, the aforementioned Mr. Boy, and, are you fucking kidding me right now how in the hell did he secure a spot on A Written Testimony, Swizz Beatz all allegedly worked on the instrumental together as a family (not really), which doesn’t help explain the simplistic music listeners receive here. Jay Electronica spits first after a Swizzy cameo (that, again, are you fucking kidding me?) but gets interrupted by an aggressive Hova, who uses his son’s name as an excuse to build his contribution around the word “sir”. “The Blinding” also features crooning from Travis Scott, of all people, but you can barely hear him at times so your mind may unconsciously skip past this shit: as he does barely anything, singing for less than ten seconds at a time and leaving his ad-libs at home, I imagine his role would have been filled by an Auto-Tuned Kanye West if he and Hov were still on friendly terms. Our host uses his second verse to describe his headspace regarding both the mere existence of A Written Testimony and his continued career, expressing a desire to help his family by supporting them financially off of the industry, but stressing out about the actual work involved, worried about “tryin’ live up to the hype” and wrapping his head around the idea of finally releasing a project “just so y’all could pick me apart”. That verse is rather relatable, although he’s the guy that chose this as a career, so. The rest of “The Blinding” was immaterial to me.

4. THE NEVERENDING STORY (FEAT. JAY-Z)

Jay-Z x The Alchemist. Truly a pairing I never thought would ever happen in our lifetime. If nothing else, at least we have this. (See also: Jay-Z x The RZA on Watch the Throne.) “The Neverending Story” will attract ears based on that collaboration alone, and don’t get me wrong, both Hov and Daniel do some good work here: ALC, in particular, provided his hosts with stellar production that eschews his typical street-rap preference, opting instead for a moody, melodic, melodramatic plot twist, and yet would still have worked for an artist such as the late Prodigy. (I mean, could you just imagine?) But “The Neverending Story” is Electronica’s to lose, and he throws everything he has at the track by way of his casual flow and tight, if sometimes goofy, bars. (It was hard for me to look past the way he pronounces the word “squalor” as “SKWAY-lore” just for the sake of the rhyme. That’s how good he is on here.) Through our host’s de facto autobiography here, he wields a master’s pen, providing obscure details that only serve to sell his story that much more. An uncredited The-Dream pops up briefly on “The Neverending Story”, his contribution a mere single line performed after Jay’s brief, but thrilling, verse. I shouldn’t be surprised that all it took was teaming up with an actual skilled emcee for Shawn Corey Carter to rediscover his purpose within our chosen genre again, but here we are. Shit, I also loved the sound effect of a page being turned in between verses from the Jays. “The Neverending Story” is fucking solid, but it’s not something that will play well in the car or at a house party: this is more for sitting down with a tumbler of scotch and putting on some music, contemplating life’s mysteries.

5. SHINY SUIT THEORY (FEAT. THE-DREAM & JAY-Z)

Continuing with his apparently latent trolling tendencies, Jay Electronica includes the eleven-year-old “Shiny Suit Theory” on A Written Testimony, which means that everyone holding their breath for the man’s debut album received a song they were absolutely already familiar with, which is just fucking rich. Our host uses  The Ambassadors’ “Ain’t Got The Love (Of One Girl On My Mind)” as a sample source, presenting listeners with a far-less-polished take on what Pete Rock managed for his own “I Got a Love” (alongside C.L. Smooth), which I was indifferent to back in the day, but it hit me differently with this listen: the imperfections and the flaws within his beat carve their own distinctive path into the melody, driving home Electronica’s “shiny suit” theory, built upon his friend Sean “Puffy” Combs’s arguments for mainstream success over underground acclaim. Puffy was merely trying to convince our host to sign to Bad Boy Records at the time, which reads like a horrible idea, although he most likely would have released his debut LP far earlier than 2020, but Electronica accepts his friend’s advice as a premise that deserves further study. 

The tracklist for Act II: Patents of Nobility, which Jay Electronica shared via social media in 2012. Far less The-Dream here, right?

“Spit it for the culture / Pay no attention to the critics and the vultures,” he says at one point, diametrically opposed to his friend’s offer as he moves through his career with a holier-than-thou attitude toward the very musical genre he supposedly represents and appreciates. He doesn’t provide a bad verse, and his chorus is catchy, but his instrumental, even though I can enjoy it more today, is still awfully distracting: Pete Rock didn’t create the music from scratch, but he kind of owns that loop, you know? (Unlike Lupe Fiasco’s “Around My Way (Freedom Ain’t Free)”, which pulls very much the same trick with “They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)”, Peter doesn’t seem to mind “Shiny Suit Theory” hanging around, possibly because “I Got a Love” isn’t a tribute to his late friend, although just because he has yet to say anything publicly doesn’t mean he endorses it, of course.) The-Dream’s bridge is still included in the box, although a long-promised Charlotte Gainsbourg guest feature never materializes. Hov, who we already knew had a guest verse on “Shiny Suit Theory”, can’t really spin the theme as well as our host, given that he was already a hyper-successful artist in 2010 and has only gotten bigger since, so instead he defends himself from his detractors, who admonish him for achieving his goals. “I’m the immaculate conception of rapper-slash-hustler,” he claims, before adopting the persona of an unsupportive doctor: “It takes a lot to shock us, but you being so prosperous is preposterous”. “Shiny Suit Theory” is as far from mainstream as Jay-Z can ever hope to achieve these days, and he sounds great. Both Jays do, really. 

But still, an eleven-year-old song? Are you fucking kidding me?

6. UNIVERSAL SOLDIER (FEAT. JAY-Z)

After a snippet from a news report celebrating the crew that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, our host provides a spoken-word intro (I mean, there’s music underneath, but this isn’t part of the song itself) delivered solely in Arabic, so listeners who feel that Jay Electronica is leaning too heavily into his Muslim faith on A Written Testimony… um, the fuck were you expecting? I gather you’ve listened to a Jay Electronica song before? A Written Testimony isn’t exactly a good starting point if you’ve never heard of the motherfucker, and if you’re only here because you’re a Hov stan, you must be confused as hell right now. Anyway, “Universal Soldier” rides a heavy synth-laden instrumental over some damp drums, providing power to the verses from both Jays, with Elec’s religious-tinted boasts (“When I spit, the children on the mothership bow on a platform”) and Hov’s adoption of our host’s fellow New Orleans rapper B.G.’s cadence, which, oddly, sounds more natural on the dude than I had expected. James Blake and Travis Scott both receive writing credits here and can be heard crooning along in the background, but they aren’t the focus, nor should they be, as our host steals the show while Jay-Z… well, Jay-Z is kind of a revelation on A Written Testimony, as though even he realized he had been coasting for the past couple of decades and decided now was as good a time as any to step his shit up. Leaving his name off of the feature credits may have been the most brilliant business move of his career, as it let us listen to A Written Testimony with zero expectations from him. Huh.

I will say that I’m deriving even more inadvertent enjoyment from the drops Electronica keeps, er, dropping into his beats, specifically the ones that sound like Westside Gunn gunshot noises and the kids cheering, although the latter also reminds me a lot of the Bodega Boys podcast, so I can definitely see how they could be considered distracting.

7. FLUX CAPACITOR (FEAT. JAY-Z)

Kind of an audio nightmare, albeit one with an excellent Jay-Z contribution, so proceed with caution. Electronica’s instrumental has far too many moving parts for the listener to ever derive something as pedestrian as “enjoyment” from it, and the extended sampling of Rihanna’s “Higher” throughout (and especially at the end) is just the tip of the iceberg here. I’m not really sure what our host was aiming for here, but it definitely seems like he was too enamored with his beat to draft a substantial verse, although it is kind of funny that, of the two Jays present, Electronica is the one that lifts old lyrics from the late Notorious B.I.G. “Flux Capacitor”, an obvious reference to Back to the Future, is an adequate name for a song where its participants (or at least Hov and virtual Rihanna here) are obsessing with the idea of “going back”, even with its bounce-inspired sound grounding the track firmly in the present. Jay-Z’s chorus is sufficiently poppy, custom-built for audience participation, but his verse is anything but: the motherfucker is angry and he takes his rage out on the microphone, rationalizing his extravagant lifestyle while directly questioning anyone who took issue with his partnering-up with the NFL in a post-Kaepernick world (although, tellingly, he doesn’t say shit about Kaep on here). “You backstabbers gon’ turn me back to the old Jay / He’s not who you wanna see, he’s not as sweet as the old ‘Ye,” he mentions at one point, smoothly transitioning from some fun O’Jays-based wordplay to a quick reference to his old partner in The Throne, who, in a different timeline, absolutely would have appeared on A Written Testimony in some capacity. Jay’s bars about how he doesn’t want anyone to use his death to promote themselves have already been quoted in countless spaces on the Interweb, but they’re just icing for the cake that is the man’s full verse, which is fucking terrific.

Again, though, it comes attached to an audio track that isn’t very entertaining otherwise, so.

8. FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT

The only true solo effort on A Written Testimony features our host referencing Thanos and ICE in order to timestamp its recording, I suppose. “Fruits of the Spirit” is pretty good, though: Jay Electronica rips into his one-verse wonder confidently, calling out hypocrisy within our society over a soothing No I.D. soul sample loop. “My people out in Flint still bathin’ in the slaughter,” he says, which may shock listeners into realizing that problem still hasn’t been solved as of yet, as though the United States is now a third-world country without resources. Which, honestly, is a discussion for an entirely different blog. (Admittedly, we all have other things to worry about at the moment, so the Flint stuff may have been obscured in your mind with all of this COVID-19 talk. Unless you live in Flint, in which case I can only offer support.) But I liked this song, and wish that Electronica provided more solo offerings on A Written Testimony, even if I understand and respect what Hov was trying to accomplish here.

9. EZEKIEL’S WHEEL (FEAT. THE-DREAM & JAY-Z)

Running for nearly seven minutes, “Ezekiel’s Wheel” is easily the longest song on A Written Testimony, and while I’m a proponent of allowing art of any medium to take as long as it needs to tell its side of their story, I’m struggling to find a rational reason for this to be so fucking lengthy. Perhaps I’d feel differently had Jay-Z contributed an actual verse (as it stands, he only helps with a chorus), but I doubt it. Our host produced one of those drumless instrumentals that are all the rage within our culture these days, although some semblance of percussion does exist to help Electronica catch the beat, and the result is twee and ethereal, which reads like a criticism, but “Ezekiel’s Wheel” is pretty enjoyable. Electronica slows his flow down a bit in order to captivate the listener, unleashing a defense of Michael Jackson (I mean, he’s entitled to believe whatever he wants, but…), talking mad shit about his skill with the mic (“You say my name like Candyman, I’ll pop out of your closet and withdraw me a deposit”), bragging about his motorcycles, or, in my favorite piece of the evening, trying to explain why it took so goddamn long for the album to drop (“Sometimes I was held down by the gravity of my pen”; “Some ask me, ‘Jay, man, why come for so many years you been exempt?’”), obliquely hinting at the crushing anxiety he felt at the idea of not living up to artificially-heightened expectations. Hov doesn’t interject at all during “Ezekiel’s Wheel”, sticking to his hook (which is fine), as does crooner The-Dream (not really necessary, but okay). Unsurprisingly for anyone familiar with our host’s earlier work such as “Exhibit C” and “Act I: Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge)”, Jay Electronica carries this leisurely-paced track on his shoulders and kills it. It does make me wonder why Just Blaze had nothing to do with A Written Testimony, though.

10. A.P.I.D.T.A.

The final song of the evening, an acronym for “All Praise Is Due To Allah”, was inspired by the sudden passing of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna, and as is to be expected, it’s a rather somber affair, one that feels more spontaneous and stream-of-consciousness than most tracks Jay-Z tends to be involved with. Produced by Houston band Khruangbin, whose own “A Hymn” is the basis for the instrumental,. “A.P.I.D.T.A.” is a series of lengthy Hov choruses that are unpolished and utterly depressing, his voice sounding weighed down and much more fragile than he’s ever been (aside from that one song where he talks about missing is absentee father, in my opinion), while Elec’s lone verse is dedicated to his late mother, whose death affected him heavily (“As I contemplate creation, the salt that heals my wounds pour out my eyes just like libations”). There are many lines on here that hit pretty fucking hard, whether it’s our host revealing to the listener that he still frequently reads through text exchanges he has saved from his mother whenever he needs a lift, or Jay-Z simply telling us to “sleep well”. You may find it even more affecting if you’ve recently lost someone important in your life. “A.P.I.D.T.A.” ends A Written Testimony on a melancholy note, but it took a realistic path to get here, so Jay Electronica earned this one.

THE LAST WORD: A Written Testimony isn’t a banging album: Jay Electronica’s beats and rhymes are a bit too detailed for that to ever happen. But it is a solid project, one that may not necessarily have been worth the wait, but one that is enjoyable and grows on you with each listen. Over the course of its ten tracks, Electronica invites listeners to hear his thoughts, which are all over the place: I mean, he’s talking about his anxiety, his motorcycles, his faith, his past, whatever pops up in his mind at the time. But he does so in a conversational tone that reminded me of early Jay-Z: it’s as though you had engaged with him at a party and he was kind enough to entertain your opinions even if he was diametrically opposed to every one of them. The music, mostly provided by the artist, follows him down that serious path, suiting his style and content perfectly (for the most part – “Flux Capacitor” is almost entirely fucking terrible). He delivers in the boasts-n-bullshit department, but unlike most rappers, one never gets the feeling that Electronica has fully bought in to his own hype, providing his verses with a relatability that is lacking in our chosen culture today.

Did Jay-Z wash him on his own album, though? Yeah, kinda. The uncredited Shawn Carter that appears on eighty percent of A Written Testimony is a fucking beast behind the microphone, using his artist’s debut album to expel some myths about himself and to set the story straight about how he views his own trajectory as a rapper. He hasn’t sounded this fierce, angry, or, to put it plainly, focused in quite a while: not even on his “grown man rap” album 4:44 was he this defensive about his place in the world, and that’s a project where he spent the duration apologizing for cheating on his wife while offering financial advice. Jay-Z is a revelation, which I’ve said earlier but bears repeating: there is no reason he should sound this good this deep into his career, but he does, and Electronica truly lucked out in securing bars from the man that sound as committed as they do. Jay-Z’s performances put his artist at a great disadvantage, because of claims such as “Did Jay-Z wash him on his own album, though? Yeah, kinda”, but it’s important to note that Jay Electronica also came prepared to this party, and the two bounce off of one another like the dynamic duo nobody ever considered they could even be until now. If this is what we get after putting up with a decade-long wait, well, I’m satisfied enough. For now. Of course, I’m hoping we don’t have to wait another ten years for a follow-up, but I’ve played this game for a while, and I’m not expecting shit anymore. Just surprise us when you’re ready, Jay.

-Max

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