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.

