Jay Electronica’s rare talent has afforded him a level of grace almost no other rapper could sustain—save perhaps André 3000. Between 2007 and 2020, he largely kept the public’s admiration alive through one brilliant debut mixtape, a string of striking guest verses, and a few mystic loosies that blended cosmic awe, theological inquiry, and samples from obscure films. Traditionalists admired how he channeled Nas, Wu-Tang, and DOOM while sidestepping modern rap trends. The avant-garde saw him as a prophet out of time, moving to a rhythm entirely his own.
But it isn’t just his technical mastery that defines Jay Electronica. His artistry lies in his devotion to narrative—his insistence on moving with purpose, even when it means vanishing for years. When he finally reemerges, the impulse is always to map the terrain he’s crossed: Where does this new music fit into the mythology he’s been building? What chapter of his gospel are we entering now? That tension between conviction and uncertainty has long been his power source, and his burden.
In late September, after half a decade of silence, he returned with three compact releases: A Written Testimony: Leaflets, A Written Testimony: Power at the Rate of My Dreams, and A Written Testimony: Mars, the Inhabited Planet. Absorbed separately or as a triptych, they mark a return to the multi-dimensional storytelling that made Electronica so magnetic in his early years. His last full-length, A Written Testimony (2020), was a different sort of offering—a shared stage with Jay-Z that served both men differently. For Electronica, it was a reminder of his poetic force. For Jay-Z, it was a bid to prove his relevance amid billionaire detachment. Their chemistry made it a fascinating document, even if, for Electronica, it felt a little too polished, too grounded. Gone were the sound collages, the film snippets, the wild spiritual digressions that once made him feel like a man broadcasting from another dimension.
Those elements have returned in abundance. Across the three new projects, familiar eccentricities bloom again—otherworldly samples, cryptic titles, flashes of Nation of Islam cosmology. Song names like “Is It Possible That the Honorable Elijah Muhammad Is Still Physically Alive???,” “Japan Airline 1628,” and “Remember That One Time Trump Tweaked on Zelenski in the White House” sound like artifacts of some deep, esoteric YouTube rabbit hole. Threaded through all three projects is a recurring fascination with the Nation of Islam’s Mother Plane myth: a cosmic vessel built in 1929 by scientists under divine instruction, orbiting Earth with 1,500 smaller crafts piloted by Black men, destined to unleash holy fire upon a corrupt world. In Electronica’s telling, UFO sightings become divine omens—a countdown to spiritual reckoning.
Conspiracies aside, his craft remains undiminished. “Ashes to Ashes,” from Power at the Rate of My Dreams, is among his most exquisite works to date—a slowed, dreamy flip of Jorge Ben Jor’s 1969 classic “Domingas,” where Electronica delivers a meditative verse about legacy and faith. “The long road to one’s own destiny ain’t paved,” he raps, grounding the mystical in lived struggle. “Letter to Mars,” from Mars, the Inhabited Planet, addressed to his daughter with Erykah Badu, captures a softer, more vulnerable side. Originally shared on Discord in 2020, it’s reimagined here with ghostly samples from Thom Yorke’s “Bloom,” lending it an elegiac beauty.
At his best, Jay Electronica feels disarmingly human. Within the space of a single track, he can swing from prophet to hermit—burdened by the weight of history one moment, uplifted by spiritual conviction the next. His art thrives on texture: snatches of dialogue, film monologues, long silences that breathe as much as they speak. On “Four Billion, Four Hundred Million (4,400,000,000) / The Worst Is Yet to Come,” a clip of Stevie Wonder improvising on Soul Train gives way to meditations on apocalypse. Rising New York singer Kelly Moonstone shines on the serene “… shine for me,” while Electronica’s own crooning on “Japan Airline 1628” feels startlingly tender. A sample of Michael Caine explaining the structure of a magic trick in The Prestige turns “Dear Mr. Blain, I Won.” into meta-commentary on Electronica’s own elusive career—his vanishing albums, his fascination with illusion and revelation.
And yet, his contradictions remain glaring. On “Abracadabra,” the first voice we hear is that of Sean “Diddy” Combs, discussing the project’s title. Even after Combs’ arrest and the release of footage showing his brutal assault of Cassie, Electronica not only includes him but defends him outright, rapping on “Blood Libel. Who’s That Lying on God?” about loyalty in the face of public judgment. The gesture—especially in light of Cassie’s detailed victim statement—lands as tone-deaf at best, grotesque at worst. It’s a moment where Electronica’s resistance to mainstream moral scrutiny veers into hypocrisy.
There’s a persistent reflex among certain men, especially within tight-knit cultural circles, to protect abusers under the guise of solidarity or anti-establishment defiance. Electronica’s justification seems to rest on rejecting carceral systems—but what does accountability look like if grace never has consequences? His posture of defiance—cosigning Diddy, platforming Dr. Wesley Muhammad’s antisemitic rhetoric, or sampling Candace Owens’ conspiratorial bile—feels less like enlightenment than provocation. It’s rebellion for its own sake, rebellion without introspection.
Kendrick Lamar played with similar fire on Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers, using Kodak Black as a kind of narrative foil while openly wrestling with morality and contradiction. But Lamar’s self-awareness gave his choices dimension. Electronica, by contrast, seems content to let the chaos speak for itself—to stand apart and call it divine mystery. He’s long operated as if he’s exempt from the rules: refusing to release Act II: The Patents of Nobility (The Turn) on schedule, then shrugging when it leaked; teasing projects like riddles only to disappear again. His mystique grants him that freedom, but it also shields him from responsibility.
Still, there’s no denying his brilliance. His writing compresses vast histories and spiritual lineages into compact, vivid bars. His sampling is erudite, his ear impeccable. Even when his beliefs stray into conspiracy, they’re grounded in a coherent spiritual framework, not random rambling. He offers windows into the Nation of Islam’s worldview, into how Black struggle and salvation intertwine in his imagination. His contradictions—the tension between higher calling and human flaw—mirror the messy, nonlinear ways many cope with generational trauma.
But as time goes on, the line between mystic and martyr grows thin. Jay Electronica’s defiance once felt principled; now it risks curdling into arrogance. His latest trilogy proves that his creative powers remain unmatched—but also that he’s still grappling with whether the role of prophet is revelation or refuge. For all his brilliance, his music leaves us wondering: is he ascending toward truth, or just circling endlessly around his own myth?
About the Author
