Intro

[Just Blaze]
I met Jay through, initially through Rashad Smith, a couple of nights. And he kept hitting me about this kid that hew knew who could rhyme crazy, but he just had, he just needed a break. But he felt like he was destined to be one of the great ones. So finally, he sent me some stuff, emailed me some music and I was instantly just like, wow

One day I was on IM and he just IM'd me out of nowhere and we just started kickin' it and at first I'm like, you know. We would talk and I was just like, yo, what is with this dude? He was just so, tryin' to think of the right way to put it. He would basically just ask you the craziest questions like, what would be the best way to attack this or attack that. Cause he's so much of a planner and a tactician and I learned that later on. At the time I didn't realize why he was asking the kind of questions he was asking me. He just wanted to know his whole plan of attack and my thing was always just, yo, just make music

I think once he got in that mindset and just started recording, it was like every other day he was sending me back something crazy. So we turned out to really develop a real type of relationship, almost like a brotherhood really

So it was kinda like I consider him like my, even though this is a cliche saying, like a brother from another mother. Just on the, not so much on the physical, but on the spiritual level and on an artistic level definitely. We just kinda bonded like brothers real quick and I think that's just because we have a love for the music and we're both really good natured people at heart, we just really wanna continue the culture and expand it and stuff instead of doing the same thing over and over again

I think, the reason I had kinda gotten, not necessarily discouraged, but just bored with hip hop in general is because people don't like to take risks, they don't like to try anything different. And in order to really make any kind of impact these days, not just sales-wise, but just on the artistry, you gotta be able to go to the left and try different things. Sometimes you'll get killed for it and sometimes you'll succeed

But he was one of the few artists that was just willing to go all the way to the left with it. Like this Eternal Sunshine thing. I can't think of any other rapper that would even think to do something like this

[Erykah Badu]
I met Jay Electronica in Brooklyn. One obscure day, a friend of mine named [?] came over to the house and told me, this is the MC I've been telling you about. He let me hear him maybe a week prior to him coming into the apartment. I remember him coming into the apartment. I remember him taking off the shoes as everyone does. I remember him having on black socks, they were short socks, like Jordan socks or something like that. I remember him sitting on the futon and I was breast-feeding and I was very busy because I was also home-schooling and I was looking around for a place to sit my baby down, my 3, 4 month-old. I handed her to Jay and she rested comfortably there and that's how we initially met. And he and Seven, my son, became fast friends. They actually became friends before he and I became friends. That was the meeting and I remember after hearing his music I wanted to start a record label just on the strength of hearing him

Jay Electronica the person. I wouldn't even call him a person cause he's a weird looking cat. His ears are kinda pointy, he's got a square head. He looks kinda like he's a alien from somewhere really. But in a rare beautiful way, like some kind of mythical creature who would have a bow and arrow on his back and wings under that bow and arrow. He also has spirit to his look. He's very unorthodox in the way he treats people. He's peculiarly intelligent and makes you very curious and draws you in and as he stated before his masculine energy really draws in the female, or the feminine energy. Which makes me happy and mad

He's just very easy to fall in love with because he's such a protector. He's such a positive, in every kind of way if you will. He's a plus in this world. I think everyone he knows becomes dependent on him because he helps us to see who we really are