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.

Jay Electronica in his “Fruit of Islam”regalia

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…