"We Made It" ft. Jay Z-Jay Electronica

"Apologies go out to all my fans cause they waited so patiently," enigmatic New Orleans rapper Jay Electronica delivers early in his verse from a remix of Soulja Boy's booming "We Made It". Considering the beautifully elegiac "Better In Tune with the Infinite" he released last week and now this, he no longer has anything to apologize for.

And while everyone is already focusing on label-boss Jay Z's shots thrown at Drake, Jay Elec's take on the pure giddiness that is "We Made It" is an unqualified success. Contorting his voice into the much discussed "Migos flow" Electronica gets sociological early and often. He plots a line of black heroes from "Solomon to Sambo to Django" while discussing the suffering that dogged all of them. "Obamacare won't heal all that anguish" he starkly reminds everyone, the roots of the pain go much deeper than that. What keeps Electronica upright in spite of that overwhelming pain is an unflinching motivation, carrying him from "from the cotton fields, straight to spaceship."

That said, it's impossible not to discuss "We Made It" without dissecting what's motivating Jay Z on the song. Apparently Drizzy's comments "Hov can’t drop bars these days without at least four art references," light a fire under Jay to respond. "Sorry Mrs. Drizzy for so much art talk, silly me rapping 'bout s*** that I really bought," Hova raps with an audible smirk over the shifty trap beat. It's not a shot fired, so much as it is a lyrical autocorrect. Most rappers are stuck living in the land of imagination, Jay's successful enough to make his dreams a reality. He's already hopped off the slave ship and can now be seen "stuntin' on stage" with a black tux befitting John Gotti. In "We Made It"'s interlude the loathsome Kenny Powers wonders aloud "why the hell are so many people trying to tell me to slow down? Seems like motherf***ers should be shutting the hell up and enjoying the show." Stop focusing so much on album delays and disses, instead just kick back and relax. 

Still no recent date for Jay Electronica's Act II though one may be coming very soon with this recent uptick in material.

 

"Better In Tune With The Infinite" ft. LaTonya Givens

If you were to rank agitated music fan bases, Jay Electronica's small but fervent base would surely be near the top. Since signing with Jay Z's Roc Nation label in November 2010, the New Orleans-born rapper has released exactly zero LPs. Songs and guest appearances have been just as sparse. Wikipedia lists exactly one effort in 2011 and a pair in 2012. Last year was a little more kind to Jay Elec fans, when he guested on Mac Miller's "Suplexes Inside of Complexes and Duplexes" and Big Sean's "Control". Granted he only rapped for a minute on the former before disappearing into a whisper and the latter presented him with the unenviable task of clawing out of Kendrick Lamar's gargantuan shadow. So as 2013 transitioned to 2014, there wasn't exactly much hope for his debut Act II: Patents of Nobility (The Turn) to drop.

But in the past two weeks, Jay Elec stock has been on the uptick. March 9 he paid tribute to the Notorious B.I.G. on J. Period's March9Revisted mixtape, comparing himself to an alchemist and delivering a "universal message." Then over the last week he logged time down at SXSW, hanging with producer Just Blaze and Dan the Automator. Apparently the love he got at the festival moved him to release "Better In Tune With The Infinite", his first track as a lead artist in several years. While it's hard to rationalize waiting so long for a single track, "Better In Tune With The Infinite" makes you consider it. Blurring together samples of Elijah Muhammad and The Wizard of Oz, the subdued number is rife with the pop-culture philosophizing Electronica perfected on "Exhibit C". "It's frustrating when you just can't express yourself," he appropriately begins. He's aware as anyone that his career thus far has been marked by false-starts; as known for his setbacks as successes. "They might could feel the music, but could never ever feel me," he puffs over mourning piano and strings. For all we know about Jay Electronica's music, we know very little about the man himself. And that won't change, no matter what he does.

"Control" ft. Kendrick Lamar & Jay Electronica

"Tell Flex to drop a bomb on this s***," Kendrick Lamar knowingly warns at the beginning of his verse. Calling Kendrick's verse atomic isn't even accurate, this isn't Nagasaki or Hiroshima for hip-hop. This is Tsar-Bomba, unparalleled levels of destruction that no one else would dare repeat for fear of reprisal. However, only focusing on Kendrick's carpet-bombing of everyone else in hip-hop would do to a tremendous disservice to "Control" as a phenomenal rap song. The bridge where Kendrick revives the stereo-panning of "m.A.A.d. city" is an onslaught of assonance and alliteration, that may be the brightest point of the entire fireball.  On either side of King Kendrick Lamar are unassailable verses from Big Sean and Jay Electronica. Big Sean tends to be one of those guys you either love or hate (forget fence-sitting) and if at the very least you don't love Sean's intensely autobiographical verse of "talkin' to the reaper to reverse death, so I can kick it with my grandad," then you have no heart for hip-hop. Jay Electronica breathlessly maneuvers through an inextricable sea of religious iconography for his verse; "tangling with Satan over history" and inscribing Jay Elec on the Book of Life. In any other scenario the rabid dogs of hip-hop would be foaming at the mouth over a new Jay Elec verse, but it's missing the firebreathing and namechecking that made Kendrick's verse so "controversial" in the first place. One mad city wasn't enough, so Kendrick's reach becomes bi-coastal and scoops up the Big Apple for lunch. Why stop there though? Kendrick continues over the blistering No I.D. beat to bring everyone else down and in the process raise the bar for rap: 

"And that goes for Jermaine Cole, Big K.R.I.T., Wale,

Pusha-T, Meek Millz, A$AP Rocky, Drake,

Big Sean, Jay Electron', Tyler, Mac Miller.

I got love for you all, but I'm tryna murder you n****s.

Tryna make sure your core fans never heard of you n****s.

They don't wanna hear not one more noun or verb from you n****s.

What is competition I'm tryna raise the bar?"

Some (see Joe Budden) chose to stand at the gates to the keep the rap interlopers out. Others sat in silence , K.R.I.T. indulged his inner Maximus, and Lupe Fiasco crafted theoretical attacks. Pusha took the invitation in stride, not bowing to regional pettiness or half-baked retorts, simply tweeting: "I hear you loud and clear my n****." Rest assured, retaliation tracks will arise. But before they do rappers would be wise to heed the words of Omar Little: "if you come at the King, you best not miss."

Big Sean's Hall of Fame is out August 27 via G.O.O.D. Music.