Spin Mag article on Jay Electronica

My main man Free met the guy... and had nothing but good things to say. Here's the Spin article
Jay Electronica lives in a third-floor walk-up around the corner from a street lined with bodegas, liquor stores, and hair salons in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, one of New York City's last neighborhoods untouched by gentrification. Barefoot, wearing a white polo T-shirt and gray sweatpants, the rapper rummages through what he calls his "bedroom-slash-studio-slash-cave," i.e. a small, nondescript office next to the living room.

He lights a cigarette, takes one drag, then leaves it to burn down in the ashtray. Tiny scars cover his fingers. "+ god –" is tattooed cryptically behind his left ear. His girlfriend, the neo-soul superstar Erykah Badu, described him thusly on his 2007 mixtape Act I: Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge): "[He's] a weird-looking cat. His ears are kind of pointy. He has a square head. He looks like he's an alien…but in a very beautiful way. Like some kind of mythical creature who would have a bow and arrow on his back and wings under that bow and arrow."

Jay eventually settles onto a futon, and I ask him to explain the lyrics of his breathtaking 2009 single "Exhibit C," which hint that his path is destined. "I used to get dizzy spells, hear a little ring / The voice of an angel telling me my name / Telling me that one day I'm-a be a great man."

"Yeah, it's funny," he says. "You write these things, but you never expect to be questioned on them." A nervous laugh is followed by a long silence. "I can't say this. This is going to be absolutely crazy if I say this. If I told you, it would have to be off the record. Matter of fact, you are going to have to sign a nondisclosure agreement and then I can tell you. This is personal personal. People will be like, 'Oh, that nigga is crazy.' "

I think he's joking. But suddenly, Jay gets up and starts poking around purposefully in the closet. Nothing but four pairs of sneakers and a charcoal-gray suit. He scans a table. Just a digital camera, candles, and a pair of dice. He moves to the living room. No agreement. Jay never finds a hard copy, so he punches it up on his iPhone. (Yes, the document actually exists.) Alas, he decides against me even reviewing it, saying that if I read it out loud, the entire interview will be off the record.


"I'm hearing that he is kind of a weird dude," says DJ Enuff of New York City's Hot 97 FM, speaking diplomatically. Enuff is credited with breaking "Exhibit C" on commercial radio. "I've met him twice. He seemed cool to me. But I hear that he's out there."

Here is why people think Jay Electronica is "out there": He goes on spiritual retreats to the Pashupatinath Hindu Temple and the Bodinath Buddhist Temple in Kathmandu, Nepal. He and Badu Tweeted during the birth of their daughter, Mars Merkaba, in February of 2009. (Sample: "I see the head, full of hair.") He is a former homeless drifter.

From Biz Markie to Kool Keith to MF Doom, extraordinarily talented eccentrics have always populated hip-hop. But none ever stood on the verge of stardom like Jay Electronica. He combines the presence and aura of early Rakim with the smoothly assaultive flow of Illmatic-era Nas, and his recent success is proof that one song can truly alter a career.

Jay Electronica went from blog curiosity to budding sensation after the release of "Exhibit C," a head-snapping banger built on a sample of Billy Stewart's "Cross My Heart," with no inkling of a hook but a profusion of deep lyricism. (The deft wordplay -- rhyming "Electronica" with "Hanukkah," "yarmulke," and "Asalaamica" -- has already been immortalized on T-shirts.) "The hairs on my arm stood up," Enuff says, of the first time he heard the song.

When the record debuted in iTunes' Top 10 and was later added to Hot 97's rotation in January, a major-label bidding war began to intensify. Since then, he's headlined a European tour with sold-out London shows and opened for N.E.R.D. But as of now, Jay Electronica remains unsigned and uncompromising.

"Labels know that they have to deal with my terms," he says, without ever specifying what those terms are. "I recognize that it's a blessing. I'm not saying it in an arrogant way. It's just, the rules do not apply."