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Jay Electronica’s Act II: The Patents of Nobility (The Turn) | album review
Jay Electronica’s Act II: The Patents of Nobility (The Turn) album — a kaleidoscopic sonic collage that is beautiful and deeply poignant.
In the opening track entitled ‘Real Magic’, the New Orleans MC proposes an optimist notion of appreciating self and life as a first step in overcoming the innumerable difficulties in life — “Sometimes that’s what you need to see yourself/ Break through and free yourself/Accept your own and be yourself/ It’s magic/ The story of life is not tragic/It’s a luxury”. The song interpolates a speech by the late 40th President of the United States of America, Ronald Wilson Reagan citing the late former Prime Minister of colonial power, the United Kingdom — Winston Churchchill, which ironically decentralizes capitalism and its subsequent hyper-consumerist and materialist culture. He rightfully posits that “the destiny of man is not measured by material computations”, but rather, that we are more than goods-consuming entities, as we are we are spirits, not animals, with a rendezvous with destiny. Ronald Reagan becomes the mouthpiece to articulate the main theme of the album — existentialism.
We will preserve for our children this
The last best hope of man on earth
Or we will sentence them to take the…
