Jay Electronica Ain’t Stupid

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This guy ain’t stupid.  This game is chess not checkers.  And Jay Electronica seems to be putting the right pieces in all the right places.

You see this is inherently all theater.  That is something that Jay Electronica seems to be very aware of.  How else could a guy who has dropped like three songs in the past year and a half have so much hype surrounding him.  I just want to bullet some of the things Jay did right.

-Jay learned the industry.  He moved to Atlanta and eventually New York and worked behind the scenes  (I believe as a photographer) for a minute.  I’m sure he just sat back and watched a lot of rappers progress, as well as watched some rappers fail.  Probably managed to make some mental notes as to what worked and what didn’t.  Plus he learned that in this business being talented won’t get you nearly as far as knowing the right people.  He realized who put people in positions to succeed and who was all talk.  He came up with a game plan first, and then he implemented it.

-He had a kid with Erykah Badu.  I mean as much as everyone jokes about it, that’s kind of a dope co-sign.  Badu tends to only be impregnated by legit rappers.  Plus it raised his profile.  Unfortunately we live in a society where people seem to care more about who is having sex with who as opposed to what music they are making.  I guarantee you that a lot of people clicked on that new Jay Electronica song because they heard he had a kid with Erykah.  I don’t think that he did this on purpose.  But it certaintly doesn’t hurt.

-This dude beat Diddy as his own game!   Jay had Diddy hyping him heaving on one of those three songs he dropped and Diddy thought he had snatched himself up a new rapper.  However, Jay did some thinking and went with hip-hop’s oligarchy.

–Didn’t he go to Nepal?  I thought that was original.  At least he wasn’t dropping videos with scantily clad women pretending to drink Conjure.  I guess the point he wanted to illustrate is that he has depth.  We need stuff like that to balance things out.

-It always helps when Just Blaze is producing a lot of your music, lets not forget that.  That’s another reason people were more likely to check the guy out.

-Sensationalizing things.  I mean I think Jay is a good rapper and all, but is his signing with Roc Nation comparable to John F. Kennedy talking about going to the moon?  I mean that is a great look, but is is a “first time landing on the moon” good look?  It doesn’t matter.  The point is that he keeps us interested.  He samples JFK for the same reason he goes to Nepal.  There are to many rappers doing the exact same thing.  Jay Electronica goes left when people go right.

-Jay speaks his mind.  A lot of people may consider Jay’s age a weakness considering he has to be close to 35, and still hasn’t dropped an album.    However, it allows for him to have a little bit more confidence with his place in the grand scheme of things.  He didn’t back down at all when Diddy fired that shot his way.  Plus you gotta remember how he stood his ground with the whole Kay Slay incident.  Jay is a man of principle.  He is going to stick to those principles regardless of what you think about his actions.  I feel like this is the most important attribute for hip-hop longevity.

-Finally he isn’t to shabby of a rapper.  He has gone about things with the quality over quantity approach and it managed to work for him.

Jay Electronica basically realized that your words only have as much power as the amount of people you get to listen to them.  He knew he was a good rapper, but he had to position himself in a manner that his words would actually be heard.  He has been with high profile women, making high profile music, that is being put out by a high profile music company.  When he signs a record deal, bloggers write articles about how he isn’t stupid.  Like I said it’s chess not checkers.  Some of the pieces are in the right place.  We will have to wait and see if Jay Electronica is there at the end saying “checkmate”.