Tuesday, March 17, 2020 — 5
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
New Orleans rapper Jay Electronica is one
of the greatest enigmas in the history of hip
hop. He first came up in the mid-2000s with
hits on MySpace. He then started dating singer
Erykah Badu; the eccentricity of her partners
after dating her has been the subject of memes
in the hip-hop community. In 2009, he dropped
“Exhibit C,” a not-so-cult classic of sorts that
is — over a decade later — still way ahead of
our time. Suddenly, everybody wanted a piece
of Jay Electronica: Labels entered a bidding
war for him, Jay-Z’s Roc Nation won out and
then Electronica spent the next decade as a
nutty Twitter grumbler with only leaked songs
and loose singles to his name. Billboard asked,
“What would it take for you to finally put the
project out?” Electronica responded, “An album
is something that was created by corporations as
a product to make
money.” The man’s
been in the public
consciousness for
nearly
13
years,
probably
rapping
in some form for
almost twice that
time, and — lo and
behold — a debut
album has arrived.
I never thought
I’d see the day.
HotNewHipHop
actually wrote a
timeline leading up
to the release of A Written Testimony that spans
over a decade. It’s been a long time coming. To
the surprise of many, Jay-Z’s steadfast cosign
materialized into a close musical collaboration.
Though his vocals are uncredited, Jay-Z is on
almost every track. Before listening, I had no
idea which rapper would be struggling to keep
up with the other. As it turns out, neither Jay
struggles to keep up. Here, both rappers are
neck-and-neck.
Jay Electronica’s bars are as tight on this
record as they’ve been since the era of “Exhibit
C,” deftly finishing English rhymes with Arabic,
Spanish, Jamaican patois, even West African
pidgin. Electronica raps, “But all praise due
to Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala / I put on for my
nation like I’m King T’Challa / Crushing the
oyibo that try to bring wahala.” It’s easy to get
lost between the lines when each bar needs
its own Google search to be broken down, but
“wa ta’ala / King T’Challa / bring wahala” is as
gratifying a rhyme scheme as they come.
Electronica’s lyrical-miracle-spiritual ecstasy
can get hazy and convoluted. His infamous
wordplay on his stage name from “Exhibit C”
spawned a hilarious parody Twitter account
that exposed how anything could sound like an
Electronica line with complex enough rhymes.
There are moments of clarity on this record
when the song concept is straightforward and
empathetic. They usually come from Jay-Z, like
when he pours his heart out through the lines “I
got numbers in my phone that’ll never ring again
/ ‘Cause Allah done called ‘em home, so until
we sing again.” But these moments are too few
and far between to ground the album, and their
purpose remain airy and muddled. That being
said, if I had to throw a party for linguistics
majors, A Written Testimony would make it on
the playlist.
Even if the album’s concept is in the air, it has
a handful of truly unique tracks, among them
“The Blinding” with Travis Scott. It’s the only
track where Jay-Z and Jay Electronica go bar-
for-bar, a dynamic so killer that it’s a shame the
two aren’t trading bars all over the album. In a
landscape of hip hop where it’s growing more
and more difficult to have production that
stands out from the
rest — everyone has
a killer producer in
their pocket — “The
Blinding”
stands
out for its haunting
vocal
samples
and
unforgiving,
blaring
bassline.
Fortunately,
Electronica
had
four
killer
producers in his
pocket for this beat.
Jay-Z
may
be
featured
on
almost every track, but it’s clear why his vocals
are uncredited. This is a Jay Electronica album
through and through. It’s an album rooted
in Islam and the Five Percenters movement.
It’s rooted in Electronica’s infatuation with
the spiritual and the intangible, with culture,
philosophy and history. In this realm, Jay-Z is a
guest. He may be one of the hip-hop greats, but
his bars remain sharp out of necessity to keep up
with a meticulous writer like Electronica.
I’m a sucker for complex rhymes, I’m a sucker
for unconventional beats and I’m a sucker for Jay
Electronica’s whole schtick, I’ll admit it. Still, A
Written Testimony doesn’t sit well with me. “The
Neverending Story” is interesting enough only
for an interlude, but it’s over four minutes long.
On “Flux Capacitor,” Both rappers (especially
Jay-Z) sound totally off, like their verses are
on top of the wrong track. One of best songs,
“Shiny Suit Theory,” is a decade-old relic from
the era of peak Electronica hype. Aside from
the standouts, most songs just sort of meander.
But that’s natural. “Meandering” sums up Jay
Electronica’s whole career, and somewhere
on that long walk toward this debut album,
he strayed too far from the creative focus that
founded his fame.
Electronica finally drops LP
DYLAN YONO
Daily Arts Writer
FLICKR
You know those television shows that
begin by stating they were filmed in front
of a live studio audience? Until recently, I
never understood the significance of it —
not just what it meant for that particular
show, but also for television as a whole.
I missed out on the time period when my
generation rediscovered and resurrected
shows like “Friends” and “Seinfeld” for
whatever reason. Of course, I eventually
fell in love with them, but long after
the rest of the world. With absolutely
no justification for missing out on the
cultural
craze
that surrounded
these
shows,
I
regretted
dismissing
them.
This
feeling
of
cultural
isolation led me
to
drastically
rethink
how
I decide what
to
watch.
Even
then,
I
still made the
mistake
of
dismissing any
show
with
a
laugh track.
Erasing the laugh track or “canned
laughter” from multi-camera situation
comedies is not an option, nor should
it ever be one. It has been a staple of the
genre since its inception. In the 1940s
and ’50s, most radio shows were taped
in front of a live audience, meaning that
actors had to leave pauses in dialogue for
laughs to allow for a natural transition
for both the actors and the viewers. With
the emergence of television, the multi-
camera format was created to evoke a
sense of liveness, so viewers at home could
feel like they were with the audience
when they laughed. Today, the general
consensus toward laugh tracks is that
they’re outdated and distracting. I used
to hold this same belief — I told myself
if something was funny enough, I didn’t
need someone else to point it out for me.
On my spring break trip to Los Angeles,
I attended a live taping for ABC’s “The
Conners,” and it was quite the experience.
Regardless of how you feel about a laugh
track, attending a live taping is something
everyone should do at least once if given
the chance. At the same time, it was
extremely inconvenient for pretty much
everyone involved. The experience of
being part of the laugh track can feel more
exhausting than being one of the actors,
from what I can tell.
Given that this process has been going
on for over half a century, it’s funny to
see how inefficient parts of the process
can be. The taping officially began at 6
p.m., but the producers recommended
that we arrive at least 90 minutes before
— I arrived around 2:30 p.m. just to be
safe — and wait in a garage with benches
until given further directions. There were
already people in line, including some who
attend the live taping every week. Others,
like myself, were out-of-towners who
wanted a taste of being in a live audience.
At 4:30 p.m.,
I was brought to
the soundstage
and
asked
to
turn
in
my
phone.
Inside
the soundstage,
the
audience
sat
on
a
set
of
bleachers
that faced the
main
sets
of
the living room
and
kitchen.
There was even
a “hype man”
who riled up the
audience before
the
taping
began and kept the crowd entertained
between takes by giving away props from
the show or throwing out t-shirts.
The most interesting part of the whole
process was seeing all of its intricacies.
Around 7:30 p.m., they fed us sandwiches,
but we could only eat between takes. I
never knew how fast someone could eat
a sandwich until I saw the guy in front
of me. The “hype man” reminded us that
whether it’s the first take of a scene or the
fourth, we should always be laughing at
the same level. There was even one scene
where the audience genuinely gasped out
of surprise, but when they re-did the take,
we had to recreate our gasps.
Hearing others laugh, even if it’s
prerecorded, can make us enjoy the show
more. Even though television has changed
dramatically over the last decade, the “live
audience” aspect is something that will
always be important to the foundation
of television. No matter your opinion on
shows with laugh tracks, attending a live
taping is certainly worth adding to your
bucket list. If not for the actual show, do it
for the sake of seeing a form of television
that is becoming increasingly obsolete —
we owe Lucille Ball that much.
Why don’t you just leave
the laugh track well alone?
JUSTIN POLLACK
Daily Arts Writer
SONY PICTURES TELEVISION
TV NOTEBOOK
TV NOTEBOOK
ALBUM REVIEW
A Written Testimony
Jay Electronica
Roc Nation
Erasing the laugh track
or canned laughter
from multi-camera
situation comedies
is not an option, nor
should it ever be one.