"Shiny Suit Theory" [ft. Jay-Z]

Rap stardom has taken an odd turn. For months, business titans like P. Diddy have been actively pursuing Jay Electronica, an elusive, mercurial, word-drunk, gravel-throated figure who's become notorious for his willingness to go months without releasing anything. And there he was last Friday night, posing onstage with Jay-Z, suited up, the newest recruit to Hova's nascent Roc Nation imprint. This partnership could go a number of different ways; the other Jay, after all, is notorious for not releasing anything from the artists he signs, so we could be looking at perfect storm of silence. But the teaming has already given us "Shiny Suit Theory", a coronation moment as unlikely and slippery as the guy being crowned.

Jay Elec is a Louisiana native who's lived, homeless, in a ton of different cities and who specializes in a strain of myth-obsessed, dead-eyed New York rap that we've come to call the Queensbridge style. (Nas had nothing to do with Jay Elec's monster "Exhibit C", and yet it was one of the best Nas songs since Illmatic.) On "Shiny Suit Theory", he finds a track just as off as he is. It's a sumptuous thing, horns and bells and strings oozing out everywhere, but the notes fall just behind the beat, and the drums barely even exist in the mix. Every once in a while, at random intervals, rolls of polite applause squirt onto the beat, obscuring actual words. Jay Elec responds with mystery and self-disclosure in equal measure: "I'm sailing on a cloud, they trailing below/ My shrink told me it's a feeling they will never know." Ron Artest aside, rappers don't often mention their therapists. He also builds an entire verse out of advice that Diddy once gave him-- framing the whole thing as an extended quote, like it's Diddy's words and not his. Then the other Jay jumps on at the end, trotting out his own mythology for the billionth time but doing it with a wordsmith flair, letting any concerned parties know he can still rap his ass off when the mood strikes him.