It’s a big deal to have the entire weight of a musical artform’s future resting on your considerable shoulders, but hip-hop enigma Jay Electronica has the wherewithal to carry it…
His name is somewhat misleading – thankfully, this New Orleans-born producer and MC (Je’Ri Allah) doesn’t peddle watery, weak computer music. What he does make is an utterly compelling, vital, substantial hip-hop sound that has made many hail him as the saviour of the moribund genre.
Elusive, enigmatic, he’s been cutting and producing tracks since 2004, but to date has only released two official singles, ‘Exhibit A’ and ‘Exhibit C’, which dropped in December 2009. What’s made his name is a series of free downloadable mix-tapes from his MySpace page. The first of which, the esoteric ‘Act 1: Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge)’, saw Jay construct layered sampladelic, and, notably, beatless soundscapes to carry his raps, from Jon Brion’s Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind soundtrack.
This unusual approach saw him generate a cult following, with everyone from Zed Bias to Gilles Peterson praising the hip-hopper. Nas’ ‘Untitled’ LP featured ‘Queens Get The Money’, with Nas MCing over an eerie, again beatless, soundscape of Electronica’s construction, this time sampling the soundtrack of Spike Lee’s Summer Of Sam film, proving he was just as adept at crafting cuts for other MCs. But it’s his own tracks that are the most compulsive, not least for a rhyme style and acuity that places him in the pantheon of rap greats, alongside the likes of Q Tip, GZA, Rakim and, well, Nas.
A new mix-tape, collecting many of his best, and unreleased tracks, ‘Victory’, has made the clamour for a full debut album a deafening roar. And that album is coming very soon. Hip-hop is dead: long live Jay Electronica!
Jay Electronica Essentials
‘Exhibit A’ download
‘Exhibit C’ download
‘Victory’ mix-tape download
