At long last, Jay Electronica's debut studio album, A Written Testimony, is set to arrive on March 18th, and the elusive and stoic rapper has officially sent the tracklist out into the world. Dropping the reveal exclusively in Arabic, his English-speaking fans took the additional measure of hitting that Google translates with the quickness. As such, it didn't take long before a rough translation began circulating the internet, revealing ten songs, features from Travis Scott and The-Dream, and the alarming absence of Jay-Z.
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Roughly translated, we're looking at:
1. The Omnipotent Event
2. The Ghost of Soulja Slim
3. Blinding (feat. Travis Scott)
4. The Eternal Tale
5. The Cosmic Soldier
6. The Brilliant Suit Theory (feat. The-Dream)
7. Intensive Flowing
8. The Fruits of the Soul
9. The Wheel of Ezekiel (feat. The-Dream)
10. Praise Be Allah
Curiously, it was originally reported that the project would feature a "heavy Jay-Z presence," with the legendary rapper said to be blessing over seven of the album's tracks. It's entirely possible that Jay Electronica has decided to keep the Jigga Man uncredited; these days, discovery is half the fun, and the suspense will certainly encourage fans to simply sit back and hit play. Otherwise, the fact that one of the only features comes courtesy of Travis Scott, who might be the antithesis of Jay Elec's style, has already piqued our interest.
Though it's arriving during a time where shit has hit the fan and the blades have yet to stop spinning, the hype for A Written Testimony continues to build. Perhaps it's the product of its own mystique, the long-awaited conclusion to a narrative years in the making. Whether it lives up to the hype is anybody's guess, but we won't have to wait much longer to find out.