RESPECT. Jay Electronica Story

Image: Anna Bauer

Do This My Way
NOLA’s Jay Electronica wants to be successful. But on his own terms. And, in his most candid interview to date, in his own words.
As Told To Elliott Wilson

By the time you read this: Jay Electronica may have, at long last, landed a record deal. Or not. It’s hard to predict the future of the enigmatic MC who electrified the rap world from the end of ’09 to early 2010 with a song called “Exhibit C.” Produced by Just Blaze, who broke the record while guest-hosting Tony Touch’s Shade 45 Sirius show, the soulful sonic boom ushered in the rise of this NOLA brother with the Nas flow—captivatingly complex lyrics and vivid storytelling.

After being wooed by the record industry’s biggest execs for a year Elect is still, at press time, a free agent. But recent dealings with Mr. Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter may be changing that. In his modest Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn apartment, the man born Timothy Thedford spoke for over three hours about his almost Forrest Gump-like journey through this thing called life. Aiming to do justice to his jam-packed existence, RESPECT. hosts Electronica unfiltered. Here’s a toast to a true original.

“My light is brilliant.”

“Exhibit C” magnified everything. Everybody was coming at one time. I’m the kind of person where if I get to a point where I can’t make this decision then I’m gonna stand still. I don’t care. I’ll stand still for two years, 20 years. I’m 34 years old. I’m still learning myself, but I know myself a little bit, so I stand still. People was telling me, “Oh, you buggin’, this is the time.”

By the time March [2010] came, it was crazy. I coulda signed any kinda deal at that time. I coulda took these publishing companies to the cleaners. I met anybody you can think of. Like, I’m gonna entertain what you sayin’, but we already have a fundamental disagreement in the way that we view the music business and the treatment of people, period. I need to feel like I’m talking to my grandmother. I need to feel like I’m talking to my sister or my mama to feel comfortable. If I’m not at that comfort level then I’m completely uncomfortable.

(Universal Records CEO) Monte Lipman was the first person that visited me. He was supposed to come by himself. He came with his whole office, and Mr. Chow’s or Philippe’s. I don’t even know what that is. I was like, Is this a surprise attack? He came in, walked around the apartment like he owned it. He said, “Yeah well we here today, I came here to make you a rich man today.” He said them exact words. I said, “Hold on man, first of all,” and I gave him the history of the white man 6,000 years ago to now, and let him know, “Wait a minute, my man, you’re in my house. You are a guest in my home.”

He seemed like a decent human but everyone got their character defects and flaws and he behaved exactly how I expected him to behave, which was unacceptable. We had a long talk though, and left on good terms, but I thought he wouldn’t ever wanna see me again. Instead he was excited. He told my man he never had a meeting like that since Prince.

I would have genuine talks with music execs. And some would agree with me on anything. I would intentionally be saying genuine things and then five minutes later say a disingenuous thing that was completely contradictory, and they would still be agreeing. That turned me completely off. I don’t wanna deal with any of that. I was just thinking about goin’ back to the plan. I started going back to Act II.

I’ve been all over the country. I’ve lived in a lot of cities on the East Coast, the Midwest, Denver. If I need a break—every environment is a home environment. So going over [to London] this summer wasn’t foreign. With all this music that I’ve been listening to for Act II, I wanted to go somewhere to sit down and go over it.

While we were over there, XL, the label, was saying if there was any kinda way we could work together. They were the first who approached me on a totally different level. Presented me with the best thing so far. In terms of money, the splits, the who owned what. They really get what Jay Electronica is. I ain’t sitting on a catalog of 80 records; if I’m sitting on a catalog of 20 records, you better believe me that these 20 records are gonna last till 2030, 2050.

I didn’t wanna come back to New York in September, but I did because I’m working on a lot of stuff and I got a daughter now. I still didn’t have no intentions on doing no deal with nobody. Closest thing was the XL situation. People know I fuck with Puff but nothing materialized from that in terms of record deal.

“I got the rap game singin’ ‘At Last’ like Etta James.”

One night, I bumped into Jay-Z at the Spotted Pig; it was [Atlantic Records COO] Julie Greenwald’s birthday party. I was like, “What is it gonna take for us to do a song together?” He was like, “You know, if I feel the record.” So, I sent it to him the next morning and later I emailed him again like, “This would be crazy if you could get in on it.” He was like, “I’m already in 10 bars. Can I go over 16?”

The song is two parts. The first movement is “Dinner At Tiffany’s,” which is composed by James Samuel of The Bullets. He’s a filmmaker/musician from the U.K. He composed the strings. We originally were trying to get Julie Andrews, but we were honored to get Charlotte Gainsbourg. That leads right into “Shiny Suit Theory,” which relates directly to Puff because nobody got through to my head the way he did.

Puff can make a statement like “Fuck the underground,” which is a blasphemous statement in rap. But he doesn’t mean that as a diss. He means, “We’re supposed to be out here shining.” Maybe I’m never gonna see the value of a Grammy. But for somebody to be able to show me the value of it, what it means for people to see you get that, and the inspiration of it. It’s like the Saints winning the Super Bowl. Yeah it’s only a fuckin’ game but what it does for the city, what it does for the people…

So the setting behind “The Shiny Suit Theory” song, is Jay-Z and I are each talking to our shrinks. We’re going through our feelings. Jay-Z goes, “Went from warring to Warren (Buffet), undercovers to (magazine) covers. If you believe in that sorta luck, your screws need adjusting. In the world of no justice and Black ladies on the back of buses, I’m the immaculate conception of rapper slash hustlers.”

So after we did the song, we sat down, kicked it, he started telling me what his idea of what Roc Nation was, what his goals are. It made a lot of sense, but I checked myself. It wasn’t just, Oh, I’m with Jay. We went to see the Gorillaz at the Madison Square Garden probably about a week later. More business talk. At this point, we got the lawyers trying to figure out what was the best, proper, possible way for us to work.

Birdman, he reached out recently. And naturally, based on the kinda music I do, based on the trajectory of my career, that doesn’t seem like a good fit. However: If I say, “I like Baby as a rapper,” people say, “I don’t get it.” People forget where I’m from. You forget how that shit is connected. But one thing about Baby is I could communicate to him in a language that he’s gonna feel me. He knows my circumstance. I told him I respect him, but I’m in talks with Jay. And he told me flat out, “I’ll match what anybody’s saying. I’ll beat what anybody’s saying.” But the reason why I would even entertain that is not because it’s Cash Money. Aesthetically, I don’t fit with that. But if we can connect, then we can get over any kind of hurdle.

“I’m back home scannin’ the land. Twenty-three million square miles of contraband.”

My family is from the Third Ward. Magnolia. Growing up in that environment, there ain’t no in-between. Either you was out there in that, or you wasn’t out there in that. I went to Catholic school, so my whole day I’m in a whole ‘nother environment, seeing shit that I don’t even know like, Oh, look two people pick him up, his mama and his daddy. Then I’m back in the projects, coming home with the uniform on. I get in a fight because I got on the uniform. Then I’m inside. I don’t really wanna go outside. Them niggas outside they wanna throw bricks in cars and, don’t get me wrong, I’ll go do it, but that just wasn’t me.

I always had delusions of grandeur, they called it, when I was little. I had a shrink when I was 8. It was always that I was just living unrealistic in my head. I tried to go to college for my mom and my grandmother because I graduated from St. Augustine High School, an all-boys school, a military school. I went to college for a semester. Northwestern State/University of Louisiana. I was pretty known on campus, used to do stupid shit, but I got caught. I got kicked out.

I came back to New Orleans and I didn’t know what to do. Everybody else was like, “Oh we out here hustling.” I started sniffing coke a little bit. I never shot up. Anyway, I was just lingering. I started hearing about some Million Man March. I didn’t really know who Louis Farrakhan was. I was raised in a Baptist church. All of a sudden people were protesting in the city. All these pastors from the churches, whether they were black or white. On the radio they was saying [Farrakhan] was the Antichrist and he was the devil. I’m like, Who is this dude?

Then one day I go to Xavier University’s campus, and there was a dude who was a Muslim, he was out there talking to some people about the Million Man March and why they should go and I was like, Let me see this. This particular man was actually living 100 percent of that word, and it was reflected in him. I paid for a ticket. I was on the bus and I didn’t know most of the people with me, nobody except one dude, Peter. We went there. New Orleans to D.C.

We went with the Muslims from my city, so they’re out there setting barricades. I was out there early in the morning with them in the front, waiting for this thing to go down, not knowing who Farrakhan is. I got on somebody’s shoulders and looked—far as you can see: black men. That nobody was fighting, we were out there crying. I didn’t even hear what Farrakhan said at the Million Man March because I was so captivated.

Eventually, I went to Chicago to join the Nation. I coulda joined in Atlanta, where I was living, but I always been the kinda person that asks, “Where’s the headquarters?” So, boom, I uprooted, left my apartment, back to square-one homeless, because I had to join the Nation. I went through processing class—13 weeks—moved through the ranks, became a lieutenant. I stayed out there the whole year. Then my man Peter came to Chicago. We became roommates, and around Christmastime, he wanted to go home, so I said, “Okay I’ll go home too.” We went down there, and then I didn’t wanna go back to Chicago. The weather was killing me. I went [back] to Atlanta because I lived there before. Being back in Atlanta made me feel like, Okay, now I’m going to New York.

I ended up goin’ back and forth there a couple of times. In New York, of course I was homeless, but it wasn’t new to me. I done went to a couple cities, including Detroit, and went from scratch a couple of times. Rashad “Tumblin Dice” Smith was the first person in New York that was like, “Yo, everybody look, let me tell you something right here: I’m gonna hook you up with such and such, we gonna try to get this meeting.” He hooked up a meeting with [Universal Records VP] Sylvia Rhone, and I met Erykah [Badu] around the same time.

Tone from Track Masters was a hater. He was in my meeting with Sylvia sitting there, like, “But I don’t get it, who are you? Where you from?” And I’m like, “I’m from New Orleans. I’m Nation, I’m street, I don’t know nothing about the industry.” So Sylvia’s jammin’ to the music and he’s like, “Oh I’m just saying, you’re from New Orleans, but you dressing like a New York nigga.” So we had an exchange up there and I stopped hearing from them.

I just went lights out. Even after I got into a relationship with Erykah, I could’ve used that, but I was under the radar. I was going through a transition, getting out of the Nation, doing things I hadn’t done in a long time. I started smoking again. I’m back in a relationship. This is the first time I’ve been in a relationship that’s outside the government of the Nation.

I just went completely personal, and I just devoted my whole self—really, a lot to Erykah. Traveling wherever she wanted to go, helping her with her stuff, just pulling myself. Then, you know, by the time Act I came out, I was in Brooklyn at her place while she was in Dallas.

To this day, I have a certain life that I want for myself, that I want for my children. I say my children because I have a daughter, Mars, but Erykah has other two children. I’ve been in their lives for as long as they can remember too, so they’re like my children—with respect to their fathers who are their biological fathers and are good fathers to them, and in their lives.

I like to drive, but I also like to be driven. I want a driver. That’s not wrong for me to say. I want a driver. I want a nice vehicle with a driver and a certain type of a lifestyle. I want a certain collection of a certain type of suits that I like to see myself in. Whether they designer or not, they fit me a certain way.

Via Rapradar

RESPECT Magazine. J.Cole Feature

Image: Dustin Cohen

Still don’t like the Waka cover? Well tough cookie. This is probably more up your alley. A profile of Jermaine Cole conducted on the eve of the release of his Friday Night Lights mixtape. Peep what the Roc Boy’s got up his sleeve.

Stick To Ya Gunz
J.Cole, the first hip-hop artist signed to Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, is notoriously guarded. Still, he can’t hide the fact that 2011 will be the year he earns his place in hip-hop history with a classic rap debut.
Words: Elliott Wilson

J.Cole hates telling Jay-Z stories. J.Cole is private. He’s protective of his own personal and professional life. So the young North Carolina MC with the young company by the name of Dreamville is even more reticent about leaking any information related to Shawn Carter.

But still. What happened on September 28, 2010, may just have changed the course of one of hip-hop’s most promising careers. So Jermaine Lamarr Cole’s got a story to tell.

On that Tuesday, New York City’s Radio City Music Hall was rockin’. Drake brought Cole out on the main stage: special surprise guest. For over a year, the Internet has been flooded with rumors and hearsay pitting these two MCs against each other. The bloggers and the commenters want rivals (rivalries equal traffic), dreams of lyrical chokeholds and grimy subliminals, of who got ethered and who’s the best ever. Of who’s famous vs. who’s Internet-famous. So it was mesmerizing to see Drake and Cole say eff all that and effortlessly co-exist, join forces and electrify the crowd. If these two dudes didn’t really like each other, it was hard to tell.

But you couldn’t blame Cole if he was a tad distracted.

That very afternoon before the show, in the bedroom of his Big Apple apartment, Cole recorded a new song. He instantly thought: This is that one. This could be the hit that raises his profile and brings his dream of releasing a classic debut album to the masses.

“There’s a producer,” he says. “Brian Kidd—who lives in Atlanta on a fuckin’ hill. He played me some of the most incredible beats I’ve ever heard,” Cole says this while on a tour bus rolling through Washington, D.C. It’s late October and he’s on the way to a Howard University Homecoming gig on a Saturday night. “About the fourth one Kidd played, I knew right away. I started writing right there. And finished it on a plane back to New York.”

So: Cole is in NYC, that Tuesday night after the Drake show. Inspired by his Dreamville business partner Ibrahim H., a guy he’s been down with since his St. John’s University college days, Cole decided to hunt down Mr. Carter. Texts are exchanged and then Cole is headed over to a fancy East Village nightclub called Butter, where a birthday celebration for Young Jeezy was dying down. “He was upstairs eating, like the Godfather, by himself at a table. I walked up to him. I ain’t have too many words. I was like, ‘Yo I think I got something special, I just need you to hear it.’ I told him I wanted Trey Songz to get on the hook and I handed him my iPod. His reaction was so fuckin’ crazy. That was probably the craziest reaction I ever got from him on any song.”

Hov’s scrunched up face and exuberant exclaims enforced that the decision Cole made to force a meeting was correct. “Out of all the songs I brought him I think that’s what he was lookin’ for,” Cole says. “It’s something I’d never done, a different sound. Like nothing I’ve done—but in a great way. This is the culmination of all lessons. I stepped out of my own box. This record will open up so many doors for me.”


October 6, 2010. New York City. A day before Cole’s takes off on a 35-city Fall U.S. tour with no name.

What’s the status of the album?
Man, I thought my album would’ve been out right around now. But one thing I’ve learned in this game is you never know anything. I remember when they gave me the release date of October 26. I was so hyped. But I soon knew that wasn’t gonna happen. I haven’t even had a consistent three weeks in the studio. I’m blessed enough to be able to go out on the road. I get a good week in the studio but then I’m off for a show. But I still managed to pull off what I think is an incredible album.

How did “Who Dat” end up becoming the first release?
Everyone at Roc Nation was asking, ‘Can we work something?’ and ‘Who Dat’ was the first record I did that had this incredible energy about it. My team in the studio was like, Whoa, this sounds special. I don’t know if it’s a single, but damn this just sounds special. It stood out immediately. My manager, Mark Pitts, always says that on your first one all you gotta do is strike a nerve. It don’t gotta be a No. 1. Even though it wasn’t a smash hit, they’ll never forget “Who Dat.” Mark said, it was like Smoothe Da Hustler’s “Broken Language.” It turns heads.

Still—you weren’t disappointed it wasn’t a big radio record?
The fact is, as many radio stations in as many places that did play ‘Who Dat’ exceeded my expectations. Now that I know the game and I’ve been on these stations, I know who’s gonna play what records, and who’s not. I refuse to be the artist that drops a super-duper great album, but it goes under the radar. Or it sells however many thousands, but there was no radio record so the masses didn’t get a chance to hear it. I refuse to be that artist.

What about the second single, “Blow Up”?
That’s like a placeholder record. They’re working ‘Blow Up,’ but you know that was another one of those records that when I played it for everybody, the reaction was like, Oh, shit. I ain’t told anybody, but I don’t even know if it’s gonna make the album.

Why did you decide to create the mixtape, Friday Night Lights?
I got fans waiting for music and I was like, if I can’t deliver them my album this year—or even a release date—I should at least give them this. To hold them over for four months or so. I’m sittin’ on so many incredible songs, whether or not they were gonna make the album. Let me put something out!

What’s the meaning behind the title?
Friday Night Lights sums up that feeling before the big game. It’s definitely an extension from my last mixtape, The Warm Up. But now it’s like he’s on the team, and it’s that anxiousness to get in the game and prove himself. Also—some fear. I had to redo songs, I had to really just suck it up and realize that a certain song might be a better fit for the mixtape than the album.

Have the frequent leaks of your material hurt?
A leak will make you fall out of love with a song. I fall outta love with my songs over time. Once I’ve heard them and done them I’m so busy thinking about what’s the next song, I forget how special these songs are that I have. I wish I was better at appreciating my songs.

I heard you have a really deep song about a girl having an abortion.
Yeah, that’s an exception. It’s definitely on the album. I’ve been saving that one. I have a video for that and everything. I’ve been sitting on the concept for damn near two years. If I get to where I want to be in my career then it could be like Eminem’s “Stan.” It’s one of those really emotional stories. It’s an immediate experience of some friends of mine, but I actually did have a similar situation, though not to the extent of the song. It’s in the vein of Common’s “Retrospect for Life.” Not that I based it off of that, but you can’t help but compare it to that.

I listened to your first mixtape, The Come Up, the other day. The underlying theme of it seems to be your dedication to your mom and your desire for her to have a better life. Like it was you and she against the world.
That’s how it always felt. Even when I had a stepfather, it was always like me, my older brother, and my mother against everybody else. Early on, I seen my mom real, real broke, working as a waitress. A single mother, trying to raise two kids, after she divorced my father, when I was two. They were both from the Army. Then she got a good-ass job working at the post office. Then she got remarried.

You didn’t have any type of father-son relationship with your stepdad?
With him, nah. I mean I thought I did. I looked up to him, but I probably didn’t ever let him know that. He did some foul shit at the end, so I never respected him after that. He disciplined, he whooped us. I never really looked at him like no father. But I still have to say that things were pretty good. We had stability at first but it all crashed and burned right as I was going to college [at NYC’s St. John’s University]. That’s when The Come Up was being made. I was still early in school, and that’s when she was really hurting because now she’s back on her own and both her sons are gone. She’s in debt, house foreclosed. I was watching her, literally, trying to stay afloat. That’s where a lot of the anger from Come Up came from.

Channeling out through your music.
That was the most angry I’ve ever been. On that mixtape. But I don’t feel like that no more. I’m at peace with how I grew up. Because it was nice. It wasn’t like I never saw my father. There’s kids way worse off than me.

Is school something you were always was attracted to?
My mom. She had such an influence on me. She put such an emphasis on school. I loved the reaction that she would give me when I came home with some straight A’s. I lived for that. I wanted to have the highest score in the class. I was just good at soaking up information quick, but my passion was elsewhere. At a young age it was basketball, and then my passion turned to rapping.

How much of a culture shock was it when you moved to New York?
It was crazy. Ridiculous. On my own, bro. I was fuckin’ silly. I remember my best female friend from high school used to ask me, ‘You going to New York? You crazy? Aren’t you scared?’ And I used to front. But man, I was 18 years old going to somewhere I’d never really been. Living in a dorm—all I knew was living with my moms up until that point. For me to do that, it really just took, like a blind confidence that I didn’t really have, but I was telling myself I had it. The first time I came to New York I told myself that I was gonna move there. I just knew. I visited once when I was 13 or 14. I said, ‘I’m gonna move here one day.’ I didn’t really know ‘til probably about 16 or 17. I was like, I can go to school in New York, college. It clicked I guess [snaps fingers]. Like: college. I could do it. It was almost like an excuse to go to New York City, and nobody’s even gotta know what I’m going for. Because I wasn’t telling people, ‘Yeah I’m gonna go get a deal.’ I was like, ‘I’m gonna go to college in New York.’ But inside I knew what it was for.


The girls think this nigga’s handsome. But sorry ladies, young Mr. Cole is taken. He did a great job keeping his relationship status under wraps until gossip site YBF reported that Jermaine, 25, got down on bended knee on October 16, 2010. After the story was published, Melissa Heholt confirmed she and Cole have been together six years, but that they are not, in fact, engaged.


In your song, “Knock On Wood” you rap about missing NBA All-Star Weekend to spend time with your girl. How do you balance your career responsibilities with obligations to your relationship?
I speak on those things to get that shit off my chest. Because I know that’s something mad people are going through. Balancing career and a relationship or just juggling a relationship, period. But yeah, I’m trying. Taking that one day at a time. And it’s great—luckily—you know.


You met her in New York?
Yeah, that’s a college sweetheart. That’s like so serious I won’t even speak on that. I’m not saying you was gonna go any further, but I’m not gonna go any further and probably never will ‘cause that’s a really serious relationship, not one of those, “These niggas are dating.” I’ve been in a relationship so long, man, that sometimes that shit is a marriage, like damn near it. It takes a big sacrifice on both sides. Obviously on the person whose career is not in this business, it’s gonna be a very big sacrifice. I guess that’s the answer to your original question, it’s just a time sacrifice. But so far, so good. I know there’s no science to this shit, but I know we’re already beatin’ the odds.

When you talk about the album, you throw out the term ‘classic.’ Everybody hopes for that, but what makes you keep articulating it?
Maybe I’ll speak it into existence [laughs]. But it’s just telling you where my mind is. It gives insight into how high my standards are, and why I let some of these songs go that somebody else would be like, “Yo, how are you not gonna put that on the album?” My standards are a little higher.

You came out onstage at his Radio City set. You recently agreed to do some European tour dates together. But the public still seems hell-bent on makin’ you and Drake rivals. Does that affect your personal relationship with him?
I don’t think it affects it. I’m aware of it. I think he’s aware of it too. But it’s not something that’s really spoken on. But moments like at Radio City crush all the talk of any kind of beef. I think it’s just a reflection of how excited people are. I feel like we’re probably the first two artists in a long time that they’ve been able to be so excited about.

Mr. Graham sent me a text, said you guys were making a song together called “The Luckiest People.” Can you confirm?
Hell yeah. That shit is dope. I’m recording my verse. Drake is one of the people I really wanted to work with as soon as I got myself to the place where I needed to be. He got himself there. He worked super hard. Those are the type of people I wanna work with. I wanna feel like I earned it.

Via Rapradar