Jay Kay from Jamiroquai reportedly “busy”…

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Andy Hutchins: People who have writing credits on “The Blinding”: Jay Electronica, Jay-Z, PartyNextDoor, Travis Scott, Swizz Beatz, Hit-Boy, AraabMuzik. Of those, the last three have production credits. Really unsure why a meeting of the minds such as this — or the greater one responsible for A Written Testimony — produced a song most notable for a steam hiss and a 50-year-old rapper sounding much younger and more urgent than his 43-year-old contemporary! But Jay Elec’s pose throughout his debut album is nigh repose: He treads a lot of the same ground he always did, and raps as the same infinitely self-assured kufi-wearer he’s always been, only so much time has passed since he first commanded the stage that he now sounds like a throwback to his own talk of the Anunnaki, and stuff like “Don’t he know I stay up for Fallon late nights?” sounds like a pathetic excuse even when it’s followed breaths later by honesty about his fears of failing to meet his own hype. It’s Jay Electronica; he is what he was and will be. More interesting is his elder’s electric performance, the lion in winter wanting to show he can still hunt, but doing so via cameos that make him affirmatively a supporting actor. I suppose no amount of talent in the group can prevent the group project from sounding rushed when it was, even if the rush came at the end of 13 years, but the inertness of beats like “The Blinding” is most of what makes what could have been an unforgettable classic a fine album, but one that will still be forgotten.
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Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: There’s always been this aura of mystery, of “hermit saint coming down from the clouds” in Jay Elec’s persona. We always thought that, once his long-awaited full length comes out, the Earth would shatter. We weren’t right, but in the face of impending doom, his prophecy comes out just as holy, although it does lose a lot of power by hiding behind Jay-Z, the High Priest of Black Neoliberalism.  
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Alfred Soto: Jay Electronica’s raps aren’t up to his beats, but with near-peak Jay-Z and hanging-in-there Travis Scott offering crucial support “The Blinding” realizes its ambitions. As for that beat, the hydraulic press hiss complements the unexpected clarity of a performer who can remark, “When I look inside the mirror/all I see are flaws.”
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Edward Okulicz: If this came out in 2006, it would probably have sounded incredibly arresting and fresh. In 2020, it feels like overly buzzy, clumpy, cluttered beats have been done. Worse, they’re getting in the way of some sharp Jay-Z bars. If you can tune the buzz out, which is easier on parts of the verses, and focus on the interjayplay, this is short, sharp and bracing. But there’s too much going on that it occasionally hurts to hear.
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Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: One of the more cluttered sub-three-minute tracks I’ve heard in a while — by the time you get Jay Electronica’s riveting second verse, you’ve already received Swizz Beats doing his schtick, Travis Scott crooning, and a half-baked set of traded bars between the two Jays lined up around the word “sir.” It’s a Jay Electronica song that’s great when it’s a Jay Electronica song, but it’s just tiring the rest of the time.
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Jackie Powell: “The Blinding” is a song of multiple chapters. The introduction, the exchanges between Electronica and Hova, Travis Scott’s hook, the 25-second outro which includes an expansion on a piano rhythm that enters the track earlier, but is underneath it all at around a minute and thirty in. I’ll break it down chapter by chapter. Chapter 1: The abrasive and unsettling inception. The complexity of the production, especially in the boisterous and unimpressive kickoff (sorry Fantano), is the result of too many cooks in the kitchen. I usually drool for any bassline or bass loop, but these sounds overwhelm rather than excite. Chapter 2: Jay Electronica and Jay-Z have a chemistry that is pure and undeniable. It’s powerful in verse one (overshadowed by the bass) but then in verse two, there’s a softness and a vulnerability. But in both verses, they enunciate. What a novel concept? There’s nostalgia in the clarity of the flow. Chapter 3: Travis Scott’s hook doesn’t add anything that I don’t receive in the verses. It feels overproduced and uninspired. The extra echo tacked on to Scott’s final word. “Sun” sounds like “Suuuuuuhhhhnnnnn.” Lastly, Chapter 4: the New Orleanian piano finally takes center stage for ten seconds to conclude. It’s gorgeous but underdeveloped and I would have rather had it as a lede, even if it’s a worthy kicker. The issue I have with “The Blinding”, though, is how its brilliance is overshadowed by how perplexing its moments of mediocrity are. The writing is substantive, a bit religious (by the way, this loses a point because of an anti-Semitic reference made on another cut on the album) and introspective. Jay Electronica’s inner critic speaks to him at the end of the second verse. But then a smooth hi-hat introduced at 1:39 can’t shine. It doesn’t have enough time to do so. Is the title ironic, maybe? Are these super producers, Swizz and Hit-Boy, a bit blind to the concept that less is more? Yep.
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Oliver Maier: Totally aimless, simultaneously overworked and underthought. Blown-out noise rap beats are no longer provocative enough to be inherently exciting, and the two Jays seem to be constantly building up to a point that never arrives. As a B-plot, Travis Scott provides what might be his feeblest feature to date, which is a real achievement.
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Ryo Miyauchi: The first verse almost hands you that Watch the Throne sequel some die-hards on KanyeToThe still clamor for, except Jay Elec stands as Hov’s better foil. The beat is crunchy boom-bap in the style of that faux-brostep breakdown of “Paris” courtesy of the same architect, and the two Jays trade bars about third-eye conspiracies while Travis Scott sings a heavily Auto-Tuned hymn. They somehow run out of steam come the second, though, with Hov peacing out early, but not before dropping a Kate Bush pun.
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Jonathan Bradley: Next August will see the ten-year anniversary of Watch the Throne, and Jay-Z’s presence on Jay Electronica’s eternally deferred debut draws a thread connecting these two albums: one an imperial show of force that now marks a time and a relationship lost to history, the other a coronation that happened because it had to, even though it seemed like its moment had itself been lost to history. On “The Blinding,” Jay and Jay lack the easy interplay built by friendship and interpersonal warmth that Kanye and Jay displayed on Throne, but their connection is real, productive, and mutually beneficial. Hov exhibits the good side of his aging self’s predilection for meticulous and fussy couplets, using the epistrophe of “I named my son Sir, so you gotta call my son sir/He already knighted” to call back to his one-time imaginings of fatherhood on Throne‘s “New Day.” Couplets like “The gift that keeps giving like babushka/Kush crushed up in the studio; rolling Kate Bush up” are a reminder of how wide-ranging and inventive he can be. But wide-ranging and inventive are qualities Jay Electronica has long been able to claim for himself; Hov’s role here — which, in a show of humility, is uncredited! — is to bestow his decades-long pedigree and affirm that Electronica still has the lyrical heft to warrant his presence. And the headline attraction does hold his own. Jay Electronica’s style combines dense traditionalist lyricism with earthy New Orleans imagery and — most resonantly — murmurs of political conspiracy and invocations of Abrahamic and Afrocentric syncretism. The last of these qualities gives his work an air of mysticism that intimates intellect and is somewhat bullshit, but is effective in suggesting that his words might obscure psychedelic depths. So, yes, Jay Electronica is a “stowed-away captive a long way home from Zion,” “the return of the lost-and-found tribe of Shabazz,” “the return of the Mahdi,” but his best lyric winks at his circuitous path to the present day: “Extra, extra!; it’s Mr. Headlines/Who signed every contract and missed the deadlines.” Incorrigible.
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