Saturday, March 14, 2020

Album Review: Jay Electronica- A Written Testimony

What a time we living in/just like the scripture says/earthquakes, fires, and plagues/the resurrection of the dead.- Jay Electronica’s “The Neverending Story”

A Written Testimony couldn’t be timelier.  The long-awaited arrival of an official Jay Electronica album clocks in as much of the world’s population confronts calamity.  Everything about A Written Testimony hits home.  Because I maintain an (intermittently) halal household and regularly visit mosques, I don’t blink at the album’s foundation in Islam.  Still mourning a December death, I appreciate the spiritual meditations on the 39-minute recording.  As someone with suddenly precarious employment prospects, I share the artist’s skepticism of several of our shared institutions.  The bleak A Written Testimony provides an entirely apropos soundtrack for this pivotal moment.

(Original image of the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan by There Stands the Glass.)

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