There is no doubt that Jay Electronica is breaking down barriers. Trying to define his style leads to a refreshing enigma. He came up in New Orleans but lived all over the country and lost the accent. He flows supremely over clashing Dilla beats but sounds at the top of his game on his own melodic production void of any drum breaks. He spits slick rhymes concocting mystical images of spiritual understanding and at the same time rips bubble gum rappers into atoms without effort.
If you don't believe me, before copping the mixtape which will introduce you to the music--What the F*ck is a Jay Electronica--just listen to "the Pledge." Jay loops the lulling melody that pervades Michel Gondry's widely influential film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), to construct an awe inspiring song. The lack of percussion sounds immediately fresh in a music game ridden with computer generated drum snares and overly produced rhythms. The imaginatively brooding melody repeats nervously in the distance infusing Jay's meditative reflections with a cutting potency. The song generates a feeling of uneasiness and fascination, a dangerous balancing act between hope and desolation.
In the longer version of the song Jay interslices the track with sample vocal cuts from other films, primarily the classic Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, directed by Mel Stuart in 1971. The sonic samples from the film draw the listener in through a nostalgiac attraction to a film that partially shaped the imagination of many American childhoods and a novel wonder produced by the strange context we're hearing it in. The vocals also act as chapter marks in a largely epic song taking on the length of about eight minutes, giving the listener a much needed moment to reflect.If you're going to Rock the Bells then you will also be seeing Jay Electronica. Give me the word on it! A full length album is due out by the end of the year.
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2 comments:
'if rap was blacks in the 60s, im a white cop in riot gear ready to hose down'
whooo that shit is fire. i cosign this post XXLs most recent issue has an article on hipster rap (just as bad as any other XXL writing) and this dude is constantly cited and called out which is an unfair categorization.
his shit is fire and hes one of the dopest emerging MCs; on top of that he has the indisputably dopest song on the new nas album. props.
I'm really feeling the intensity of his rhymes over a melodic loop stunted with an eerie absence of drums. It's making rap do summersaults all over itself. And yes, Queens definitely took it.
I wonder how his act is going at Rock the Bells. T
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