Roc Nation made a big mistake signing Jay Electronica...here's why(this is bias but true, so what)
If I was to meet Jay-z the first thing I would say to him is 'Jay Electronica is easily one of the biggest mistakes you've ever made.' The music industry is more than art, Artist careers are developed not through magic, a beat doesn't magically appear, fitting that one of the themes of Jay Elect’s music is a magic trick. But sadly, albums don't magically appear, it takes work to bring an album together.
If you aren't willing to do the work get out of the way of people that are willing and able. There are millions of rappers who would literally kill to be in the position Jay Electronica was in around 2010 when Roc Nation acquired him as an artist. Jay released a single, 'Exhibit C' which was a great track, an appetizer for what was sure to be an interesting project.
I understand the enigmatic, 'Killah priest’ who accidentally enjoys American consumer culture as much as learning about the esoteric realities 'product' Jay could have been. There was a marketing opportunity in there between 2010-2012. The problem is its 2016, 6 years later, and the man has no studio album to speak of.
Did Jay-Z know this artist was going to underperform like he has? Doesn't it look bad when an independently funded artist out works a man with a major push?
My problem with Jay Electronica is the lack of respect for the culture by non contribution. You weren't brought here to date a Rothschild, you were brought here to work. At some point we as an industry have to develop a standard to prevent individuals like this from ever becoming prominent in hip hop again, people who lack a significant contribution.
Maybe they were trying to capitalize on the blog buzz...I try to reason with the fact Jay Electronica is someone people are willing to work with everyday, and I can only attribute his signing to an error in judgement. Jay Electronica talked a lot of big talk, holding up Masonic canes in interviews & meditating in Peruvian shrines. My biggest question is what any of this has to do with the craft of creating a hip hop album other than being possible subject matter.
You can't just call people the 'devil' when you don't want to work, this is embarrassingly immature behavior. I was one of the people defending Jay 'Man he made Dimethyltryptamine, until you can understand that song you can't talk about Jay not dropping an album'. I can no longer defend Jay 8 years down the line of him underperforming. I'm not only disappointed as a fan by his lack of work ethic, but I believe it says something negative about the immaturity of the hip hop culture. In no other music genre could an individual's name continue to pop up without having a significant amount of work put out.
Why would Jay-Z risk having his brand look so inefficient? I've created more albums from my house than they could do with massive budgets and YEARS of time. I would be personally embarrassed that I got the wrong artist and Jay Electronica is the wrong artist. He is lazy, and attention seeking. I don't have much to say to Jay-Z, but I would seriously pose this question to him.
I heard Jay-Z say once in response to this 'We all have to respect everyone's time'. I understand what he means by this to a degree, yes there are a lot of factors that determine the acquisition of talent, and timing is one of them. To see that there is a mistake and not fix it though seems like a sort of immature insanity that hip hop tends to harbor. In any other genre the man would have been dropped like a hot potato.
So let's hope Jay Electronica reads this, gets angry and finishes that album, because he was the chosen one, keyword 'was'. He is now a complete failure, blowing the opportunities he was blessed with on a massive scale, and I can no longer defend that.
