Jay Electronica - Exhibit C

If you’re wondering why we haven’t heard much from Just Blaze lately, it’s partly because Jay Electronica kidnapped him and locked him up in the studio to work on his debut album. If “Exhibit C” is any indication of what’s to come, Jay should go ahead and put a bigger lock on Fort Knox Studios. I don’t know how much of this will translate onto his full-length, but Jay is on a tear right now.

“Exhibit C” embodies everything people admire about Jay Electronica — a combo of compelling confessionals and convincing boasts, delivered in a charismatic manner. Using his life experience as a thread, Jay weaves a needle between southern rap’s thorny past and glorious future in one sharp swoop: “When New York niggas was calling southern rappers lame/But then jackin’ our slang/I used to get dizzy spells, hear a little ring/The voice of a angel telling me my name/Telling me that one day i’mma be a great man.” That he’s doing on a track with one of the most sought after producers in the East Coast is symbolic of Jay’s talent and broad appeal. I’ll even forgive him for swiping MF Doom’s lyrics in the next line (”Eating wack rappers alive shittin’ out chains”), because if anyone can eat a wack rapper and shit out his chains, it’s Jay Electronica. I mean, Jay ElecHannukah.

Jay’s imagery is impressive. But it’s only one part of the equation. The other part comes from Just Blaze’s musically rich soundboard. A dense soundscape of shimmering piano licks over a classic break beat and thumping bass is the recipe for an instant banger.

In fact, I’m now convinced that Just has musical notes where his fingers are supposed to be. How else do you explain his streak of consistency for damn near a decade? Among the producers that rose to prominence in the early 2000s, only Kanye West and The Neptunes can boast of a better track record. But that’s because those guys churned out beats at an alarming rate while Just was busy playing video games. Who knows, maybe the gruesome label politics surrounding the Saigon experiment left him sapped. For whatever reason, Just seems to have found his rhythm again. I don’t know how much Jay Electronica had to do with that but the two seem to complement each other perfectly.

Hip-hop demands an extended alliance from this duo.