A Sudden Trilogy: Reviewing Jay Electronica’s Newest EPs—Power, Leaflets, and Mars
Jay Electronica recently delivered a flurry of new projects, a busy weekend that saw the long-awaited rapper drop multiple new and older works. After finally catching up, I wanted to jump into the three newer releases that form a short trilogy. These are my thoughts on the newest additions to the mysterious artist’s catalog.
A Written Testimony: Power At The Rate Of My Dreams
The first of the new batch is the quick, 12-minute project, A Written Testimony: Power At The Rate Of My Dreams. There’s a lot to unpack across all these releases, so let’s dive right into this first taste.
The EP kicks off with a strong opener, a clip from Rambo featuring the powerful “Civilian Life” speech. The first actual track, “Ashes to Ashes,” immediately showcases Jay Electronica’s rapping prowess; his flow and lyricism feel untouched. Unfortunately, a common thread in Jay Elect’s career, the song leaves you wanting more. He only raps for about a minute before the track closes out with more dialogue. These audio clips are frequent, and while I appreciate them and their thematic inclusion, their sheer volume on such a short project is a bit excessive. I anticipate this continuing, but hope the balance shifts.
Moving into “Best Wishes,” Westside Gunn drops the first verse, and the pairing makes sense, offering a quick, effective team-up with about a minute of bars each. “Blood Libel. Who’s That Lying On God?” is easily my favorite track on this EP. It features an immaculate, soulful beat that Jay Elect absolutely glides over. He’s always spitting, but the production here brings out his best. The EP closes with “BIG Baby Jesus,” where Jay channels an Ol’ Dirty Bastard style. While other rappers have tried this, Jay Electronica might pull off the imitation better than most.
My final takeaway is that I loved the music, but I hate that I started counting verses and minutes. When a track is noticeably short and features a high number of clips, I can’t help but quantify the actual music. That said, the actual music on display here was great. I take into consideration that this is an EP and the first of many promised projects, but I will keep this balance in mind as the series progresses.
Rating:👑👑👑👑👑👑👑 (7/10)
A Written Testimony: Leaflets
Following swiftly on the heels of Power At The Rate Of My Dreams is A Written Testimony: Leaflets. Where the first release was 5 songs in 12 minutes, Leaflets expands to 7 songs and 28 minutes, offering more length per track—which gives me high hopes.
“Abracadabra” has a rough start with a Diddy intro. Setting aside the controversy and the inclusion of the Roth material, “Abracadabra” is a great song. I’m not always as enthralled by Conductor’s production as others, but I thought this beat was excellent and the type of sound Jay stands out on. “Real Live Alchemy” is essentially a skit—one that I liked but felt could have moved on after the first 30-45 seconds.
“Is It Possible That The Honorable Elijah Mohamed Is Still Alive???” comes next, and I like it, even for a lengthy song. I didn’t expect to be as into it since I’m not a big DRAM fan, but he sounded really good as the bridge between Jay’s verses, and Jay, of course, did his thing. The beat isn’t my favorite overall, but it worked well for DRAM.
“Japan Airline 1628” was the first song I genuinely disliked. Jay sings the first half and raps the second, but the singing didn’t work for me at all, and I hated the beat, especially in this context. The rapping couldn’t save it; it felt like a Kid Cudi throwaway from Free. “Four Billion, Four Hundred Million (4,400,000,000)” starts with a great sample that evolves into Jay rapping over a more solemn beat—not my favorite verse or beat here. It’s not bad, just not a favorite. It then transitions out of that beat into a great tune and some solid dialogue, but as a song, it was a bit too disjointed. It flows, but it won’t be a song I return to outside of a full project listen. The final track, “Highlander,” is interesting but contains no rapping.
I expected the dialogue samples to continue from Power into Leaflets, and while still present, the balance is better than what I feared. Jay delivered with most of the songs here. It’s not a perfect project, but it has some undeniable tunes that have me more excited for the litany of projects supposedly in the pipeline.
Rating: 👑👑👑👑👑👑👑 (7.5/10)
A Written Testimony: Mars, The Inhabited Planet
The third new release is A Written Testimony: Mars, The Inhabited Planet. Another very short EP that sees Jay experimenting a lot, the question is: will it stick? And will it maintain the level set by Power and Leaflets?
“Letter to Mars” is the first real song, and it’s a full track, which is a nice change of pace. That said, it’s not a song I love, mostly due to its mood. Jay includes a little “mumble stuff” to fill a bar in (which he does again later) that I don’t love. But, if one missing bar means we actually get a Jay Elect album, I’ll take it. The next proper song is “RealCandaceO …Tell Us More!” which is excellent and easily my favorite on this quick 16-minute EP.
“if you won’t do it for you… shine for me.” is next and is a great performance from @FalElectronica. I appreciate the showcase for her, but I’m not sure this project had the time for a track with no Jay Elect rapping. “CNN & BBC are liars” is similar, only I didn’t enjoy PYT Joyce’s performance as much as I did @FalElectronica’s. “Anybody Else Know How To Work Ruby Slippers???????????????????” is another really good song, but it is very short and felt underwhelming after the wait between “RealCandiceO…” and this track.
This EP felt like a slight disappointment after the strength of Power and Leaflets. However, I’m hoping this is the start of something bigger rather than the end. A Written Testimony: Mars, The Inhabited Planet opens with a clip from The Prestige, a movie about magic, illusions, and, most importantly, third acts. Obviously, we have Acts 1 and 2 already released, but I’m still not sure how this new trilogy fits into getting to “Act 3,” and I’m not convinced Jay won’t try to pull more tricks before we finally reach whatever the finale is. But I’m intrigued and can’t wait to find out. Assuming we ever do.
Rating: 👑👑👑👑👑👑 (6.5/10)
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