Bun B has a track record that leaves no doubts about his place among the all-time greats in Hip Hop, but even he was once left speechless upon listening to a body of unpublished work by Jay Electronica.
During an episode of AUX MONEY that aired on Thursday (December 14), the Houston native recalled being in London for Gumball 3000 in 2011 when the recent Roc Nation signee hit him up out of the blue.
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“I’m in the club, it’s 12 at night and I get a DM on Twitter from Jay Electronica,” he said. “He’s like, ‘Yo, I’m going to the studio later. Why don’t you come and meet me?'”
Caught off-guard when the New Orleans native said that a car would pick him up just hours later at 5 a.m., the “One Day” hitmaker obliged and was driven out to the English countryside in Surrey soon after.
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“He’s like, ‘Let’s just watch the sunrise, OG,’ right?” he continued. “And it’s Phil Collins’ old studio and it’s on a farm, so it’s like, you see goats and cows and shit. And then we prayed, and then he played me an entire album — this is in 2011.
“I’m sitting there, I’m like getting overwhelmed by all this music, and I’m dead tired ’cause I ain’t went to sleep and I gotta be back in London in the car, ready to drive at 10 o’clock. So he’s like, ‘What you think, OG?’ And it was some of the greatest music I’ve ever heard in my life, at the time.”
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He was even offered a guest spot on the record, but remembers being too tired to even decide where he fit on the tracklist.
“I’ll be honest, I don’t even know which one of these muthafuckas need me. Like all of this music is amazing … but it was literally so far removed from when he finally dropped the album that I can’t remember if anything that’s on the new album was from back then.”
Watch the UGK rapper reflect on his encounter with Jay Elec at the 28:45 mark below:
It is unclear if Bun B and Jay Electronica have worked together on music recently, though the latter did recently tease a new project and even suggested that it could be a star-studded affair. The enigmatic lyricist sparked excitement in late October by declaring it’s “ALBUM TIME” while sharing a snippet of a new song, which appears to be called “Leaflets.”
In a video posted to Instagram, the 47-year-old rhymer hinted at his next record, seemingly titled Bismillah Boys. “Bismillah” is an Arabic term that means “in the name of God,” which occurs at the very start of the Qur’an and opens the Basmala — a phrase used by Muslims before starting “good deeds” (such as prayer) and most daily actions.
In his caption, he tagged over 100 accounts, including fellow musicians like Beyoncé, Diddy, Jadakiss, 2 Chainz, Erykah Badu, Conway The Machine, Just Blaze, DJ Premier and The Alchemist. Also tagged were NBA star Kyrie Irving, comedian Dave Chappelle, actor Mahershala Ali, fashion designer Jerry Lorenzo and legendary radio host Angie Martinez, among many more.
Jay Electronica fans will know to take any album announcement with a pinch of salt considering the years-long delay behind his debut album, A Written Testimony, which eventually arrived in 2020.
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The follow-up to his breakout 2007 mixtape Act I: Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge), the project was essentially a full-length collaboration with JAY-Z, who signed him to Roc Nation back in 2010.
While fans had long been expecting the album to be called Act II: The Patents of Nobility (The Turn), Jay Elec instead recorded A Written Testimony in “40 days and 40 nights” between December 2019 and February 2020.
