The Witzard

At this point in time, Jay Electronica and his long-rumored debut album have both become something of an enigma... although, with endless false start-ups and album "announcements," early this morning, 13 years after dropping Act I: Eternal Sunshine (the pledge) Jay Elect has finally dropped his debut album, A Written Testimony. Timothy Elpadaro Thedford or Elpadaro F. Electronica Allah, better known as Jay Electronica, first burst onto the Indie Hip-Hop scene in 2007 with "Act I." As its title suggests, Electronica primarily rhymes over the Jon Brion-scored soundtrack to Jim Carrey's award-winning film Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind and features soundbites throughout from Erykah Badu & Just Blaze. Since then, Jay Elect has, technically, only "officially" released a handful of tracks, including, "Exhibit A," "Exhibit C," "Letter to Falon," "Shiny Suit Theory," "A Prayer for Micheal Vick & T.I....

"+ fyi - every song on this album is a completely different style, so ["flesh without blood"] isn't a 'representation' of everything, just a taste of a vibe," @Grimezsz recently revealed on Twitter following the unexpected premier of her first Art Angels double-singe, "Flesh Without Blood/Life In The Vivid Dream." Grimes' long-awaited and previously scrapped follow-up to her critically-acclaimed album Visions (2012) has rather interestingly been described by Claire Boucher herself as: "it's all "real instruments," half of the tracks are diss tracks, there's a Nu-Metal track with a Taiwanese rapper, the whole thing was inspired by Billy Joel , there's a song about a gender-fluid vampire Al Pacino ," of course, paraphrased and reinterpreted a bit by the good people over at Stereogum . On the heels of "Flesh Without Blood" & "Life In The Vivid Dream," Grimes called in BBC Ra...

"Oh well, since it leaked... here's a better quality version," @JayElectronica exuberantly Tweeted early Friday morning, upon the unexpected leak of a low-quality version of his track, "Road to Perdition" 'guest starring' mentor and Roc-Nation label boss, Jay Z . It's the latest track Electronica's recorded and released 'with' Jay Z (behind "We Made It" and "Shiny Suit Theory" ) - 'with' in quotation marks because Jay Z 's feature in question on "Road to Perdition" is more or less composed of lines sampled from his American Gangster -centric track, "Success" (2007). "Road to Perdition" in fact, first appeared on Jay Electronica 's 2012 screen-grabbed 15-track Act II: Patents of Nobility (the turn) rough tracklist. Electronica's notoriously shelved album will reportedly also showcase the varied talents of Kanye , Serge Gainsbourg, Erykah Badu , Jay Z, Charlo...

" [Jordan Asher] came up with his logo, a horizontal stripe with two verticals, which can look like connected crosses or, people have told him, like "a bridge, train tracks, motorcycle handlebars," he said," laments a recently published New York Times profile centered around Run The Jewels , Beyoncé, and Sia collaborator, Jordan "BOOTS" Asher . "I'm not going to reveal rightly yet what it is. But if it's got you wondering, I'm on the right path;" Asher's purposely vague statements would in fact, then lead me to believe that the title of his recent short film/5-song soundtrack, Motorcycle Jesus , is likely a clever allusion to his sparse cross-handlebars BOOTS imagery. It's the proper follow-up to BOOTS' critically-acclaimed WinterSpringSummerFall mixtape (2014), which @bootsonboots modestly self-describes as: "my objective with this body of work was not to make "rock music." It was to make new mus...

While it's unclear to exactly what capacity at this point, but it seems as though Dirty Projectors frontman and guitarist Dave Longstreth was somehow involved in the writing/recording of Rihanna, Kanye & Paul McCartney 's new single, "FourFiveSeconds;" according to a currently unsubstantiated report from Kanye 's friend and long-time barber, Ibn Jasper , " Kanye 's whole new album is co-produced with Paul McCartney ... He decided to put Rihanna on ["FourFiveSeconds"] and put it on BOTH of their albums because they are both Roc-Nation " (reports which Rolling Stone have since shot down). In addition to Longstreth, "FourFiveSeconds" additionally features as-yet-unknown contributions from Mike Dean , Dalllas Austin, Elon Rutburg , and Noah Goldstein, as well as Ty Dolla $ign and Kirby Lauryen , both of whom previously worked with West-McCartney on "Only One." It's without a doubt the track Ty Dolla $ign ...

"It's our summer jam, so we figured we should put it out, cuz I am very bored of waiting to finish my album [before] releasing new music haha," Grimes (real name Claire Boucher ) said in a recent press release. Last winter, Boucher signed what some might call a mildly head-scratching management deal with Jay Z 's own Roc-Nation off-shoot company — alongside previous signees HAIM , M.I.A. Santigold , Mark Ronson, Shakira , Wale, and The Ting Tings . Grimes and her fellow Canadian comrade/frequent collaborator Blood Diamonds were reportedly commissioned by Roc-Nation to produce and original track for R&B super-star Rihanna . While it was ultimately rejected by the Roc-Nation team, Grimes & Blood Diamonds recently recorded their own version of the track, now re-titled "Go." Blood Diamonds' 2010-12 reminiscent Dubstep/Electro -leaning production work seems to have been influenced by Grimes' former Full Flex Express touring mates, ...

Under the cover of night, late Saturday night into Sunday morning, Jay Electronica uploaded a new track with label boss Jay Z , "We Made It." It's pretty crazy to imagine, let alone actually hear, Jay Electronica rapping over a beat initially laced up by both Soulja Boy and Drake , which ends up being his third track released in a month's time (more than 2012-13 combined). According to okayplayer , Jay Z recently asked Electronica which "turn up" [hit record] they should attempt to jump on and he suggested "OG Bobby Johnson," but HOV ultimately picked "We Made It" instead. While it was initially released as Soulja Boy 's lead-off The King mixtape track, Drake further popularized "We Made It" during his Nothing Was The Same (2013) album roll-out campaign. Preceded only by rookie producer Purp Dogg 's extremely well-played Eastbound & Down -referencing intro, Jay Electronica ferociously rhymes: "Th...

There's an old English proverb that goes something like "just ask and you shall receive," a phrase which Twitter user @Erick_Grady can whole-heartedly attest to; he initially Tweeted, " @JayElectronica I think this would be a perfect time for you to drop that "Better In Tune" record" late Friday night. Following a week full of random photo-opps at SXSW , the reclusive rapper almost immediately uploaded "Better In Tune with The Infinite" from his long-rumored Act II: Patents of Nobility (the turn) to his newly-formed CRACKTRACKS Soundcloud account, FACT further reports that "Better In Tune" actually lifts it's string-based instrumental from Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto 's piece, "Bibo No Aozona" (2006). It also manages to inter-splice a re-appropriated intro speech from The Wizard of Oz , spoken word dialog from Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad , and the lush vocal stylings of LaTonya Give...

It almost seems wrong to [mis]label an artist as blatantly prolific and broad-spanning as Shawn "Jay Z" Carter as a mere rapper; Since he's arguably a powerful entrepreneur, businessman, record exec, sports agent, club owner, and 1/2 of a dynamic power-couple. After releasing his Samsung -backed Magna Carta... Holy Grail album on July 4th, he's once again teamed up with iconic "99 Problems" music video director Mark Romanek to create a 10-minute "Picasso Baby" performance art film. Recorded last month at Chelsea 's own Pace Gallery , Romanek's team managed to capture 40+ hours worth of film over a 6-hour period with 8 meticulously-placed cameras. Loosely inspired by a similarly-minded Marina Abramović performance-art piece, The Artist Is Present , Jay Z & Mark Romanek packed the room full of creative types, eager super-fans, and journalists including: Judd Apatow , Alan Cummings, George Condo , Rosie Perez, Fab 5 Freddy , Taraj...

I don't think I've ever been so fucking elated [EXCITED] to see a tracklist for an album that doesn't really even exist yet!; Just a few mere hours ago, Jay Electronica Tweeted a screengrab of Act II: Patents of Nobility (the turn) in his iTunes , which was originally rumored to have been released online over Winter Break 2008-09. Jay-Z has supposedly been [with]holding Act II since Jay Electronica turned the final version into Roc-Nation back in March 2012 because he thinks "it has no single on it," which I find pretty hard to believe... considering the breath-taking gamut of featured talent: Kanye (2) , Erykah Badu, Sean "Diddy" Combs , Jay-Z (2), Charlotte Gainsbourg , The Bullitts , The-Dream, and even Ronald Regan/Serge Gainsbourg !? After while, my eye noticed that quite a few STELLAR, previously-released tracks like "Dear Moleskine," "Exhibit A-C" (Remix), and that Nasty Nas guest verse are noticeably absent from Ac...

Jay Electronica is quite arguably the most prolific, storied, and mysterious rapper(s) of our current generation all rolled into one; A man who's painfully short backcatalog speaks nearly endless volumes. Aside from a few batches of tracks with unknown origins, Electronica has only released about 5 single-worthy tunes since quietly appearing on the scene in 2004: 16-minute [debut] opus "Act I: Eternal Sunshine (the pledge) ," "Exhibit A (Transformations)," "Exhibit C," "Shiny Suit Theory," and "The Announcement." Since Act I 's initial release (2007), it's proper Nas -assisted follow-up has often been long-rumored, time and time again. Frankly @ this point, I'm beginning to wonder whether or not it even exists. Soon after signing to Jay-Z 's very own Roc-Nation label in 2010, Jay Electronica announced the supposed completion of "Act II: Patents of Nobility (the turn)" via Twitter . Don't hold you...