I think Jay Elect wants to be in the public eye and get a "kendrick or Jay-Z" type fame. I think he bought in to his own hype, and all the people who bumped his first releases are not bumping this album. Allot of his old supporters was s***ting on this

i actually think jay elect revels in being a best kept secret and being favored by a specific group of people and contemporaries. yet, he also is insecure when the spotlight.

he's referenced "The Alchemist" and transforming into the wind on a couple of songs.

I think that serves both his mystique that he cultivates as well as his insecurity.

I promise you a lot of the people who bumped the album are still bumping it. You're making a lot of assumptions that really don't matter towards the art side of s***.

The Alchemist isn't really a valid point of evidence to back up that take. The transformation into the wind isn't in order to escape, which I think seems to be the a***ogy you're drawing. When Jay uses that line in Ezekiel's Wheel its to mean staying true to himself and his values, substance over transience in regards to his music, and the time and self-reflection that takes.

I can see that being part of it for sure, but coupled with the two lines before it, I think there’s a lot of self doubt in whether his art is good enough for the pressure and pedestal he puts himself on. essentially never feeling good enough and always feeling he needs to improve, so he retreats to find it.

I am making assumptions, but I am also speaking some facts.

You are right about the fact that non of what I am writing has anything to do with the artistic side of the spectrum

Remember when Jay E used to follow us all on twitter

Despite the criticism this album took, this is rap album of the year to me. When you really break down the lyrics, I don’t see how people say Hov out rapped JayElec. Besides Flux Capacitor the album has so much replay value. Royce and Boldly James gets honorable mention, but no one else is close.

agree although that rihanna sample is hard af - jay's hook though

I’ll never understand the hate for this album.

I believe there are some valid and justifiable criticisms of the album.

Only the oyibo criticizing this. The work of Dr. Yakub lives on

"my train is on schedule" but I had to take the Underground Railroad like Harriet

Just Blaze talking Exhibit C & Jay's new album

24:18

I feel like "paradigm shifter" isn't really the correct phrase to describe Exhibit C. This would imply that it had a large influence over the industry, which it didn't imo.

"Lightning in a bottle" is the better phrase here.

Interesting to hear him talk about Act 2

If Jay really fell out of love with it

He said there wasnt really much traditional rap records on the radio, and I'm assume he meant that there was influx of these records played more

I know man

I understand though if he wanted to do away with the Prestige and Acts trilogy theme. It was an idea he had as an up-and-comer in '07; it's unrealistic to expect someone to be tethered to that for their whole career as an artist.

Then again, sounds like Just Blaze is just giving his theory, so maybe the Acts are still a possibility. (Maybe the debut with Hov was Act 3.)

I did notice this on Jay's Spotify page:

"After a series of recordings failed to launch, Electronica scrapped everything he'd begun work on over the years and started afresh, writing and recording most of the material that wound up on his 2020 debut A Written Testimony in a short window of time just before the album's release."

Not sure what 'failed to launch' means here (or the writer's source for that information). Had he been expecting a larger reception from Letter to Falon and Road to Perdition, and didn't get it? Did he not find the sound he wanted? etc.

Technically the inclusion of Shiny Suit Theory means he didn't scrap everything

ktt2.com/jay-z-and-roc-nation-doing-a-movie-allegedly-jay-electronica-63207

"In the words of Rex Mills, the cemetery of love is filled with murder, death, kill."