Tell me if you find this record anywhere...The terribly-named Jay Electronica is a Southern rapper from New Orleans' notorious Third Ward, specifically the oft-rapped about Magnolia Projects. He makes the best kind of rap.
A little while ago, I was listening to Kanye West's Graduation and pretty much dancing like a madman. My friend Joel walked into the room, looked at me quizzically and simply said, "What is he talking about?"
I'm sure that question followed one of Kanye's endearing lyrical clunkers (Dear Kanye, "Apologying" is, in fact, not a word), but I tried to think of an appropriate response. I couldn't come up with one, so I probably said something dismissive and went back to bobbing my head (that's what she said). Daddy, they just wanna dance.
That's what a lot of these "conscious" underground rappers forget. In the middle of their dense (read: boring) diatribes and self-righteous bluster, they forget that they aren't making a pamphlet. They're making music. And the purpose of making music is for someone to hear it, right?
As Wesley Snipes so delicately put it in Mo Betta Blues (a Spike Lee Joint), "The people don't come because you grandiose motherfuckers don't play shit that they like. If you played the shit that they liked, then the people would come. Simple as that."
That's what Jay Electronica is fairly adept at doing. This grandiose motherfucker plays music that the people like. His music isn't burdened by his message. It's the opposite: his messages give him purpose and freedom. Unlike a lot of underground rappers, he doesn't try too hard, so he never comes off as sanctimonious or cloying. For instance, on "The Pledge," he raps over a mushy Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind sample. The "beat" is essentially different string and piano loops interspersed with audio clips and it has absolutely no percussion. With most other non-mainstream rappers, this would be the perfect formula for saccharine or self-righteous boilerplate sap-rap. But, Mr. Electronica comes roaring onto the track rhyming athletically and brilliantly varying his cadences and emphases. And every time his voice appears, the brittle track acquires a new strength.
Jay Electronica raps that he "could care less 'bout a plaque and a Bid-enz / or getting Punk'd on TV by his Frid-ends," but, for his value as an example, I hope he gets that exposure. That's what she said.
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