2025 in Music

According to Soundcloud I spent most of my time listening to various shows on Afropop Worldwide, Rinse FM and Sleep’s Dopesmoker. All of which made on appearance on previous years lists. The new addition for 2025 was Jay Electronica’s “A Written Testimony” EP trilogy (?). Compared to last year, my Soundcloud list is about the same, while a quick review of my history/timeline for a few other platforms indicates I’ve still been repping lots of Bad Bunny, KEXP, LaRussell, Tiny Desk and Western AF. What is perhaps most interesting about that is that 90% of my Soundcloud time is logged from my work-station and given how/when I listen, each platform has a distinct vibe/represents a particular set of activities and their corresponding soundtrack. So John Carroll Kirby was still a top artist (Tuscany serving as a regular soundtrack for family dinners) and I listened to about the same amount of Alice Coltrane (mostly while keeping up my yoga practice) and Keith Hudson (while hanging outside/working in the yard).

Some new favorites were Eladio Carrion, Hugh Mundell, LA LOM and as already mentioned I played this track repeatedly. One new trend was a return to alt and 90s rock (Beastie Boys, Fugazi, Nirvana et al.), mostly as a result of trying to find music all three of us (my son, wife and I) can agree on. Especially, when in the car together.

In terms of concerts, Bitchin Baja’s and Prairiewolf at glob were a blast and included a bonus hang-night with a buddy visiting from West Cost. While the first night of Denver Metal & Beer Fest with my BIL was fun and the surprise for me was OKC based Chat Pile. Plus, he and I caught a couple of great sets at the 2025 Bluegrass on the Arkansas (in Salida, CO), including night one’s closer, Magoo.

While I listen primarily to digital-streaming, I did make an effort to dig into my vinyl collection more. Especially, in the second half of the year. There were a handful of records added to the collection this year, with the best being World Psychedelic Classics 4: Nobody Can Live Forever – The Existential Soul of Tim Maia and 400% Dynamite Ska, Soul, Rocksteady, Funk and Dub in Jamaica, both gifted by friends. The former has been on heavy rotation for at least last few years so I was pumped to unexpectedly get my own copy and while I wasn’t aware of the later, it is chock full of classics! In terms of my own finds, I thrifted a copy of Stealing Fire by Bruce Cockburn along with 1 or 2 LPs from Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson.

Otherwise, I still use an old dedicated MP3 music player for running and it’s library hasn’t been updated in some years. It a weird mix of early/mid aughts London bass and grime mixes, DatPiff downloads and stuff like Pink by Boris. I probably listen to this from Elijah & Skilliam (ft JME and Skepta) the most. For me it’s perfect running energy/vibes!

Finally, this Butthole Surfers mix has become a regular evening (usually to kickoff or end the weekend) listen and I unwind from many a weekday, with NTS Radio. In particular the Raja Vibrations show.

#Boris #BruceCockburn #Dopesmoker #JayElectronica #JME #JohnCarrollKirby #Music #RagaVibrations #RinseFM #Skepta

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on #BBC6Music's #ThePeoplesParty with #AFRODEUTSCHE

Jay Electronica:
🎵 A.P.I.D.T.A.

#JayElectronica

https://taeonenyc.bandcamp.com/track/14-a-p-i-d-t-a-featuring-jay-z

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on #BBC6Music's #LaurenLaverne

Jay Electronica:
🎵 Exhibit C

#JayElectronica

https://astronote.bandcamp.com/track/jay-electronica-exhibit-c-astronote-remix

https://open.spotify.com/track/4Mb5DVgLbFjlSwcuMdOw7B

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on #KEXP's #StreetSounds

Godfather of Harlem, Jay Electronica:
🎵 Leaflets

#GodfatherofHarlem #JayElectronica
#newRelease 🆕 album

https://open.spotify.com/track/2yP67eopRzl68wuqthYNUz

🔊 #NowPlaying on #KEXP's #StreetSounds

Jay Electronica:
🎵 Exhibit C

#JayElectronica

https://astronote.bandcamp.com/track/jay-electronica-exhibit-c-astronote-remix

https://open.spotify.com/track/4Mb5DVgLbFjlSwcuMdOw7B

🔊 #NowPlaying on #BBC6Music's #TheMorningAfterMix

Jay Electronica:
🎵 A.P.I.D.T.A

#JayElectronica

https://kemetic7ntr.bandcamp.com/track/17-we-older-than-starz-we-come-from-magic-kilindi-iyi-8uild-a-p-i-d-t-a-jay-electronica-jay-z

https://open.spotify.com/track/5wJC8qlivbwAx29bnTecSn

🔊 #NowPlaying on #BBC6Music's #LaurenLaverne

Jay Electronica:
🎵 Exhibit C

#JayElectronica

https://astronote.bandcamp.com/track/jay-electronica-exhibit-c-astronote-remix

https://open.spotify.com/track/4Mb5DVgLbFjlSwcuMdOw7B

This EP was released on July 2nd in 2007. I originally reviewed this project all the way back in July of 2016 when I was just 17 years old, and I loved it back then. However, in the last 8 years it has grown to become my favorite extended play of all time. I think I originally reviewed it as a mixtape. I consider it a free EP personally, but I guess it can be both. I personally find the original review that I wrote for this EP—and any other review I wrote as a teenager for that matter—to be extremely embarrassing. Because of this, I decided to lock the original review behind a password. If you want to read the review that badly, I’ll send it to you for the low price of five dollars. Just let me know. No, I am not joking. Anyway, when I first listened to this project, I was absolutely floored. I already really loved a lot of the loose singles I had heard from him, but to be honest most of that stuff is pretty different from this project. At least sonically. I guess the leak of Act II is the closest thing, but only a few of those songs were out by the time I got to this. So yeah, I was already a big fan of Jay Electronica, but I think this is the project that elevated him to one of my favorite MCs of all time. I actually can’t remember if he was already one of my favorites, but that would be wild. To me this is still the best project Jay Electronica has ever released. Okay, that’s not really saying much I guess, but I think the Act II leak and A Written Testimony are amazing as well, so it kind of is for me. With all that said, I think Better in Tune with the Infinite might be my favorite song he’s done. Maybe in 5 years I’ll do an Act II review to celebrate the 15 year anniversary of Focus Hip Hop. That’s my excuse to do this by the way; this blog is turning 10 years old in December. I’ve already begun the commemoration by publishing a redux review for Atmosphere’s God Loves Ugly this past June. That album really hits me on an emotional level, so I love it for very different reasons than this EP. As a result, this review will likely have a different vibe to it. We’ll see how things come out I guess. Anyway, let me begin talking about this project in particular. This was supposed to be the first in a trilogy of three acts. This was obviously the first entry. The second entry is an album called Act II: Patents of Nobility (The Turn), and it was leaked in 2020 I believe. After it started spreading online, Jay Electronica decided to put it on TIDAL, so you can stream it there if I’m not mistaken. You definitely could at one point. I don’t know if you still can. The final entry in the trilogy was supposed to be called Act III: The Last Will & Testament of Timothy Elpadaro Thedford (The Prestige), but I don’t even know if that exists. Anyway, the whole schtick of this first project is that Jay Electronica is rapping over the soundtrack to the classic film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which was produced by Jon Brion. You may recognize that name because Jon Brion was an executive producer on Kanye West‘s best album, Late Registration. It stars Jim Carrey & Kate Winslet, and was written by Charlie Kaufman, and it’s one of my favorite movies of all time. Definitely check it out if you haven’t seen it yet. I actually heard this EP before watching the movie, which may or may not have had an impact on how much I enjoyed both of them. I didn’t really know what this was gonna be like on my first listen, but I was still expecting it to be really great.

The project begins with Intro, which features Just Blaze & Erykah Badu talking about their relationships with Jay Electronica. I think I really overlooked this part of the project when I first heard it. It works super well as an introduction—not only to this project, but to Jay Electronica as an artist overall. A lot of the things Just Blaze says about Jay come off as platitudes at first, but then once you actually get heavily into the music you completely understand what he’s talking about.

We would talk, and I was just like, “yo, what is with this dude?” He was just so… Tryna think of the right way to put it… He would basically just ask you the craziest questions like, “what would be the best way to attack this or attack that?” ‘Cause he’s so much of a planner and a tactician, and I learned that later on. At the time I didn’t realize why he was asking the kind of questions he was asking me. He just wanted to know his whole plan of attack, and my thing was always just, “yo, just make music.”

In hindsight, this part in particular kinda feels like a red flag indicating how much of a perfectionist Jay ended up being, which of course resulted in his infamously barren catalogue. The thing with Jay Elec is that he actually has a good amount of music online. You just have to be willing to look for all the leaks. They’re of course not on DSPs, so I guess there’s an automatic barrier to entry for a lot of casual music fans. Most—not all—of them were uploaded to Jay’s official YouTube channel in 2017, so be sure to check that out. Anyway, Just Blaze goes on to praise Jay Elec’s creativity and originality.

I think the reason I had kinda gotten, not necessarily discouraged, but just bored with hip hop in general is because people don’t like to take risks. They don’t like to try anything different, and in order to really make any kind of impact these days—not just sales-wise, but just on the artistry—you gotta be able to go to the left and try different things. Sometimes you’ll get killed for it and sometimes you’ll succeed, but he was one of the few artists that was just willing to go all the way to the left with it. Like this Eternal Sunshine thing. I can’t think of any other rapper that would even think to do something like this.

Again, normally this kinda stuff just sounds like platitudes, but it legitimately applies to Jay Electronica. Nothing really sounded like this EP before it came out. To be completely honest, nothing sounds like this after it came out either. It’s a completely unique piece of Hip Hop music. Erykah Badu begins speaking around the halfway point about how she learned about him as an artist. She then begins speaking about him on a more personal level, and about how he has what the kids these days refer to as “aura.” For those of you who don’t know, Erykah & Jay were romantic partners and eventually had a child named Mars together in 2009.

He’s very unorthodox in the way he treats people. He’s peculiarly intelligent and makes you very curious and draws you in, and as he stated before, his masculine energy really draws in the female, or the feminine energy. Which makes me happy and mad. And um… He’s just very easy to fall in love with because he’s such a protector. He’s such a positive, in every kind of way if you will. He’s a plus in this world. I think everyone he knows becomes dependent on him because he helps us to see who we really are.

Apart from the content of the vocal clips, I also just really love the music from Jon Brion. It’s probably a bit too on the nose for me to say this since Brion is a composer of film soundtracks, but fuck it. This shit sounds cinematic as fuck. I don’t think it would’ve been a very good instrumental to rap over, so it makes sense that Jay just used it for the intro. Again, I think I didn’t appreciate this as much as I should have the first time I heard it. I was kind of an impatient listener back then, so I didn’t really wanna sit through this before getting to the rapping from Jay. I listen to it every time I play this project now though. I think it’s perfect. The first actual song starts after about six minutes and forty seconds, and it’s called Eternal Sunshine. The first time I heard this, I literally had a nerdgasm after the first four bars. Seriously, if you read the original review I wrote, you’ll see what I’m talking about.

It’s not only the lyricism and God-level flow, but also just the beautifully arranged instrumentation from Jon Brion. This sounds like it’s own sub-genre of Hip Hop. I don’t just mean “Drumless.” I think that’s kind of a bullshit subgenre anyway, but that’s a conversation for another day. However, like I said, there’s not really anything that sounds like this. I think one of the closest examples we’ve gotten is Lupe Fiasco‘s 3,048, but even that song had a different energy. I guess you could also throw in the intro to Lupe’s last mixtape from 2015. Again, it was a different vibe. Jay Electronica isn’t even the only person to use this instrumental, but nobody has knocked it outta the park as much as he has. It’s not that the other versions are bad—I quite enjoy the song Tonedeff made as Peter Anthony Red called The Projectionist—but Jay Elec just nailed this shit so perfectly that there really wasn’t a chance of anyone surpassing it in terms of execution. Anyway, let me get back to talking about Jay’s actual lyricism on this track…

I think this was my favorite track on the whole EP the first time I heard it. It’s far from the most lyrically intricate song on the project, but I was just really blown away sonically. I’m not saying the lyrics are dumbed down or anything. My statement was more of a testament to how deep things get later on here. The whole song is just one verse, and a lot of it is about how Jay has different goals & priorities than most Hip Hop artists.

People probably knew from this project that Jay Electronica wasn’t gonna have a normal career. You can have an abnormal career and still keep your fans satisfied, but that’s just not what ended up happening I guess. Then again, the concept of a “normal career” is somewhat dubious, especially these days. Anyway, here are the last four bars of the verse…

That’s so fire. It’s also true that there’s not a single drum or hook on this project. The verses are divided by a plethora of movie samples, the first of which is introduced on the third track, …Because He Broke the Rules. This was the one song that I didn’t love as much as others on my first listen of the project. I don’t know if it’s still my least favorite track. I mean, obviously the intro is the least exciting part of the EP, but I feel like it’d be cheating to choose that. Hmmm… I don’t know… Well, anyway, I think the reason I didn’t appreciate this song has much as I do now is for the same reason I disregarded the intro initially; I was just an impatient listener. In hindsight, the movie clip doesn’t take up nearly as much time as I thought it did. It’s a clip from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory in which Wonka himself yells at Charlie & his uncle for breaking the rules, hence the title. One thing that kinda stood out to me is that this track really reminds me how excellent of an actor Gene Wilder was. That entire rant he goes on at the beginning of this track is so well performed. It’s super well done. Also, the weird way the audio is edited and ever-so-slightly distorted is pretty cool. The actual music starts about 50 seconds into the track, and it’s incredible. The instrumental sounds even more cinematic than it did on the preceding track, and Jay’s rapping here is absolutely stunning. In terms of content, he’s pretty much rapping about the pain that comes with fucking up a romantic relationship.

To be honest, on my latest listen of this project this song kinda gave me the same feeling as Kendrick Lamar‘s For Free? interlude. It’s not really similar at all, aside from maybe structure and brevity. I just feel like both of these tracks have a very vivid atmosphere. When I listen to To Pimp a Butterfly I feel like I’m being transported to another world, and this project and song in particular have the same effect. I keep coming back to the word “cinematic.” Again, it feels very on the nose due to the nature of this project. I’ve never been a huge film guy, but this project makes me wanna get into cinema. Jay’s flow, lyricism, and vocal delivery are all perfect here to me.

Again, there’s only one verse from Jay here, and I guess it feels kinda short. Jay is able to pack so much into such a small amount of time though. I feel like this is how a lot of Rap fans feel about Earl Sweatshirt‘s modern material. Anyway, everything about this song is boiling hot fire. I think it’s dope as fuck. The following track is called Voodoo Man. I think this one is my favorite. This shit is fucking incredible. This is the track where Jay just goes ham and cheese on the lyricism, and it’s absolutely astonishing. I live for this shit, man. Well, hold on; I’m getting ahead of myself. The track begins with audio from a Kurdish film called Turtles Can Fly. It came out in 2004, and was about three child refugees waiting for the United States to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam. This scene in particular is about how a little boy is unknowingly in a dangerous area surrounded by landmines. It’s all in Kurdish, so I can’t understand any of it. I only know what’s happening because of the translation on Rap Genius. Anyway, Jay Electronica absolutely slaughtered this shit.

This shit is insanity, man. He’s so fucking good. The dude is a fucking alien. When Kendrick Lamar annihilated Drake this year, I distinctly remember referring to him as a “superhuman.” I feel the same way about Jay Electronica. This dude was on some other shit.

There’s something slightly unsettling about this song. I mean, Jay Electronica’s lyricism is otherworldly, but I just mean sonically. The instrumental that he chose for this one sounds like something that would play in my head as I’m working on a plan to end an important relationship. It’s like, “oh shit, this is gonna be really difficult and possibly traumatic.” It sounds like stress in the form of music. It’s not only the music, but the audio clip that comes in while Jay is rapping. It’s basically some guy giving an eye-witness account of a U.F.O. that he saw. The way it’s incorporated is so fucking cool though. This audio is panned to the left while Jay’s rapping is panned to the right. I think it was slightly disorienting during my first listening experience with this project, but I was able to adjust to it pretty quickly. I think it’s fucking awesome.

This man was absolutely sliding on this shit. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to be a rapper in 2007 and hear this guy making this kinda music. I would be like, “man, I really ain’t shit, huh?” Like, goddamn. This dude really put other MCs to shame in 15 minutes. The song is fucking incredible. The closing track is called FYI, and it’s amazing. This might actually be the best song. I don’t know. Choosing a favorite and least favorite song from this project is gonna be really difficult for me. Anyway, this song has a really beautiful, piano-led instrumental, and of course Jay murdered it.

I just feel like I had never heard anyone rap about this kinda shit the first time I listened to it. I mean, this was back in 2016, so to be fair I still had a very limited, underdeveloped idea of what Hip Hop was, and I had only exposed myself to mainstream and semi-mainstream music. I think I’ve only become more open-minded over the years. These days, any time an MC raps about anything even remotely religious, mystical, spiritual, philosophical, surreal, etc., I think to myself, “this is some Jay Electronica type shit.” That’s the kind of artist he is to me. He’s the first person that comes to mind. In fact, I think I literally made that exact Jay Elec comparison in my review of my favorite D. Lanham & Ronesh project, Ikarus Rising.

The song ends with audio of Wonka and crew in the glass elevator towards the end of the film, and then we hear a quote from The Prestige…

Are you watching closely?

I have only seen that movie one time in my life, and I was very stoned at the time, so I couldn’t really keep up with what was happening. To be honest, I don’t remember much about it. However, there’s a part where the main character tells a little boy the followinig…

Never show anyone. They’ll beg you, and they’ll flatter you for the secret, but as soon as you give it up, you’ll be nothing.

I could be reaching right now—this is part of being a Jay Electronica fan to be honest—but I think this quote is an indication of Jay’s hesitance to release more music. He’s far from the type of artist to release any and everything he records. I think the reason he holds on to his music so closely is because he doesn’t want to soil his reputation of being one of Hip Hop’s greatest magicians. There are obviously some holes in this theory, but it kinda makes sense to me. I’m not sure if I believe it, but it’s cool to think about. Anyway, this was a perfect cliffhanger to end the project with, and it leaves me in awe every time I hear it.

This EP is a masterpiece. Jay Electronica really knocked this whole idea out of the park. The instrumentals, rapping, and movie clips all come together to create such a strange, unique, and astounding atmosphere. I absolutely adore it. Like I said in the preamble to this review, this is my favorite EP of all time. A couple years ago, Dan-O of FreeMusicEmpire invited me on to his State of the Game podcast to talk about some of my favorite EPs of 2022. At one point he inquired about the purpose of an extended play, and I unfortunately didn’t really have an answer at the time. However, since then I have decided that the main indication of a successful EP is that it leaves me wanting more. Obviously since I was waiting for Act II for so long, Jay Electronica definitely accomplished that goal. That hasn’t changed. I still am fiending for new music from him to this day. I loved A Witten Testimony, and I loved the leak of Act II even more. I don’t think Act III even exists, but part of me is still hopeful that we’ll get another project some day. However, even if we don’t, Jay is solidified as one of my favorite rappers ever solely due to the existence of this EP. Fun fact: this is the only Hip Hop project ever released that I have memorized all the lyrics to. It’s absolutely incredible, and I literally couldn’t recommend it more. Check it out.

Favorite Song: Voodoo Man
Least Favorite Song: Eternal Sunshine

100

https://focushiphop.com/2024/07/10/10yearsoffocushiphop-2/

#ErykahBadu #JayElectronica #JonBrion #JustBlaze