A Written Testimony by Jay Electronica

Serving as the intro to the album, this track is an excerpt from Louis Farrakhan played over a delightful piano track. The message from Farrakhan sets the tone for the album.

Paying homage to fellow New Orleans legend Soulja Slim, this track's rapping kicks off with Jay-Z aggressively attacking the instrumental with lyrics like "you can't talk how I talk cause you ain't been where I been".

Jay Electronica jumps on and carries the baton with his usual style of poetic vibrance and wordplay that others aspire to achieve. The beat adds its own element to this track and rounds out nicely after a set of closing lines from Jay-Z.

An easy contender for top 3 tracks on the album, the beat alone is masterful. The back and forth rapping from Jay Electronica and Jay-Z adds a "Watch the Throne" feel. Jay-Z's opening verse on this track is one of my favorite verses on the entire album.

As the beat transitions, Travis Scott adds light vocals intermixed between more back and forth from the two Jay's. The greatness of this song is that it leaves no time for the listener to think, it demands attention and earns it.

It feels a disservice to call these beats, or even instrumentals. They are scores, akin to move soundtrack cuts. Jay Electronica begins his delivery, feeling like he is talking directly to us, delivering his sermon, speaking, and storytelling.

"If you want to be a master in life, you must submit to a master." There is a lot to unpack there, but a carrying theme of this song and the album as a whole. Greatness learns from greatness, and on this album we get two greats, who I am sure both learned from one another, and in true music fashion we can debate the levels of greatness and who is the greatest.

About half way through the beat flips as the sound of a page flips as well. Jay Z makes his first appearance on the track, but follows Jay Electronica's lead with his storytelling until the beat carries the track away.

This song feels like a full band is behind Jay Electronica as he raps. Giving the imagery of being on a late night talk show, in front of an audience, the song paints imagery that can feel like a sitcom.

Jay-Z enters and enters into his storytelling mode as well, carrying the energy. If you sit with this song, you can nearly see it as easy as you hear it. That is possible because of the storytelling masterclass put on by both emcees and a beat that is almost hypnotic in feel.

"I pack up all my sins and I wear them to the show". In what seems like the theme of the song as it is carried throughout the chorus, this line stuck out to me as Jay Electronica's vulnerability in his work.

Another hitting the top 3 of this album, the opening audio snippet taken from atomic bomb testing set a surreal scene to kick off this track. As the simple but powerful beat kicks in, and the soft vocals ring in the background, the tone is set for a song to make you feel everything Jay Electronica is about to speak into existence.

Jay Electronica is an extremely "wordy" rapper. However, I feel his poetic writing makes it feel less overwhelming or daunting than others. He teaches how it is done with precision in his opening verse of this song.

As Jay-Z enters the track, following the lead but with his own flare, they both wrap up with smaller verses and give this beautiful instrumental its own time to shine as it definitely deserves.

The energy kicks up a bit on this song, but the instrumental quality does not degrade. Jay-Z kicks off the track in a feverish pace compared to much of the previous verses. Addressing his fame now and where he came from, this is a classic Jay-Z verse in many ways.

Jay Electronica raps a bit more playful with his verse as well. The track is much more light, vibrant, but also spares room for a message for those willing to read between the lines and who have lived in lives similar to the artists.

The constant references to areas in New Orleans shines throughout the catchy hooks. As the song closes, the beat shifts and does a curtain call with another instance of production quality being top tier on this album.

Jay Electronica is smooth as the skin of peach on this track from jump. The beat in the background feels like the cold air on a winter Sunday morning. This track was hard to not include in my top 3, had it been longer, it may have knocked out one of the others.

This track is over 6 minutes long and made of greatness. Jay-Z kicks us off over a beat that exists only to carry the poems to come. Jay Electronica dives in shortly after and delivers more storytelling, more sermon talk, and more vulnerability. "My debut album featuring HOV, this is highway robbery" raps Jay Electronica.

This song is for headphones, you need to listen, to hear.

We all "have numbers in our phone that will never ring again". When I heard that line by Jay-Z I knew this song was destined to be one of them ones.

As Jay Electronica mentioned the death of his mother shortly after his verse kicked off, the song hit me. Not because I lost my own mother, but because I can empathize with that will inevitably feel like someday, because that is what great storytellers can do.

"Sometimes I wonder do the trees get sad when they se leaves fell", Jay Electronica speaks as one of his closing lines, the imagery and poetry blending amongst the guitar strums.

This is one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. You mix the guitar strums, the soft beat, and the way Jay-Z closes this by skipping saying the word "end".

The showmanship and artistry of this track is phenomenal and the way that it closes out this album is perfect. Undoubtedly my favorite track of the album, a rarity to be the last of an album.

Another lengthy track, coming in at over 5 minutes, and I still "didn't want this thing to end".