{"id":805194,"date":"2020-03-12T22:34:32","date_gmt":"2020-03-13T04:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=966721"},"modified":"2020-03-12T22:34:32","modified_gmt":"2020-03-13T04:34:32","slug":"jay-electronicas-debut-album-is-real-and-its-finally-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/jay-electronicas-debut-album-is-real-and-its-finally-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Jay Electronica\u2019s Debut Album Is Real, and It\u2019s Finally Here"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Until it arrived on Thursday night in the midst of a pandemic, almost no one could assert one way or another whether<\/span> Jay Electronica<\/span><\/a>\u2018s album was actually going to appear. He \u2014 and his label, Jay Z\u2019s Roc Nation \u2014 had stoked the fires, and rumors abounded, including that this would be a joint project with Jay Z. But next to no confirmable details emerged until Electronica himself shared<\/span> a tracklist<\/span><\/a>. Even then, it was hard to be sure that the album was real, and for good reason: Everyone\u2019s been waiting for a while.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jay Electronica, a New York transplant from New Orleans, arrived online in 2007. <\/span>Act I: Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge) <\/span><\/i>was his introduction, a 15-minute piece featuring Electronica rapping over Jon Brion\u2019s score for <\/span>Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind<\/span><\/i>. It was a weird, dense track \u2014 he doesn\u2019t take control of it until 6 minutes in, happy to build mystique and atmosphere \u2014 but the rapping was so immediately, titanically good, that Electronica was quickly hailed as the genre\u2019s next great hope. It would be the last project he\u2019d release for nearly 15 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

After <\/span>Act I<\/span><\/i>, Electronica would go on to release a series of one-off songs and guest verses, most notably partnering with the veteran producer Just Blaze on 2009\u2019s \u201cExhibit A\u201d and \u201cExhibit C.\u201d True to their name, the songs sound like evidence in a case for Electronica as the answer to every rap traditionalist\u2019s wildest dreams. Here was, finally, the next artist to take seriously as a contender for the best rapper alive. After a bidding war, he signed with Jay Z\u2019s then-nascent Roc Nation, under one of the other perennial contenders for that same title.<\/span><\/p>\n

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After that, rumors about Jay Electronica\u2019s personal life began to spike, and the music began to dry up. There are scattered songs and appearances \u2014 all of them range from good to dazzling \u2014 but he gradually receded from view. The debut album rap fans were waiting for never materialized. The game changed, over and over again, and the one-time savior of the art of rapping stubbornly refused to arrive.<\/span><\/p>\n

Until 2020, that is, over 10 years since his last agreed-upon masterwork, \u201cExhibit C.\u201d Late on Thursday night, Electronica appeared on Instagram Live; listening parties that were scheduled in New York, Los Angeles, and New Orleans were cancelled due to the spreading coronavirus pandemic. He seemed unconcerned. Electronica held the phone himself and played \u201c4:44\u201d over the monitors as a large group crowded into a studio. \u201cThis is the safest room on earth right now,\u201d Electronica said, after Big Sean requested that everyone wear gloves. \u201cWe\u2019re going to blast from the top,\u201d he said, as soon as he reached 4,000 viewers on his livestream. Then, he played the album. <\/span><\/p>\n

After a brief, string-filled introduction, the first voice on the album \u2014 based on the order it was played on the livestream \u2014 wasn\u2019t Jay Electronica\u2019s, but Jay Z\u2019s. He was also on the second, third, fourth, fifth, seventh, eighth, and 10th songs. The rumors that it was a joint album weren\u2019t strictly correct \u2014 but it\u2019s close. \u201cThe most patient man alive,\u201d Electronica said, describing his mentor. \u201cI\u2019m serious,\u201d he insisted, after the room began laughing. <\/span><\/p>\n

Following the livestream, A Written Testimony<\/em> hit Tidal<\/a>; it\u2019s expected to be released on all platforms on Friday. It\u2019s been a long time coming, but Jay Electronica\u2019s debut album has arrived.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Popular on Rolling Stone <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Until it arrived on Thursday night in the midst of a pandemic, almost no one could assert one way or another whether Jay Electronica\u2018s album was actually going to appear. He \u2014 and his label, Jay Z\u2019s Roc Nation \u2014 had stoked the fires, and rumors abounded, including that this would be a joint project […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-805194","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-19 08:47:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}