The Irony of Prodigy Rhyming on Jay Electronica's New Record

Incredible lyrics and on-point rhymes notwithstanding, my almost immediate reaction to finally hearing a legitimately new song from Jay Electronica was to wonder how Prodigy ever scored the coveted feature for what may turn out to be Jay Elec's lead single for his debut album, which many fans have been waiting on for what seems like years now despite him having been signed to Roc Nation for just under a 12 months.

The rapper who was unable to recover from being knocked off course about a decade ago by Jay-Z's Summer Jam sneak attack, Prodigy has made Jay-Z the lyrical object of his scorn ever since, including as recently as in the writings of his autobiography.

So how then did Prodigy manage to secure a verse on the new Jay Electronica song, which was made possible through Roc Nation, Jay-Z's record label?

Why J. Cole Is Not a Priority to Jay-Z

 As if the lengthy delays after being touted as the next coming by Mr. Carter himself were not proof enough of J. Cole dangerously languishing in Game-like purgatory, it is becoming more and more apparent that Jay-Z has better things to do than foster the growth of his label's new jack rapper.

Is Jay Electronica the Carlos Boozer of Rap?

Six years ago Carlos Boozer accepted a $68 million offer from the Utah Jazz, which came as a total and complete surprise to his then-current team, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Six years later, LeBron James spurned the same team via a grandiose, drawn out announcement on prime time television that once again broke the collective heart of Cavaliers' fans.

In both instances, the Cavaliers were seemingly caught off guard and not expecting to lose their star players under any circumstances.

And now, just a few weeks ago to every one's surprise, Jay Electronica did the equivalent in Hiphop by signing a record contract with Jay-Z's record company, Roc Nation.

Now, it is no surprise that Electronica would enter into a record deal. In fact, it is what his fans were hoping for so that his music would be distributed in a wider and more professional manner than random Internet "leaks" every now and then.

But now details are emerging that suggest Jay Electronica pulled a Carlos Boozer and surprised everyone including his closest adviser, Just Blaze, who most likely had hopes of signing him to his own Fort Knocks Entertainment imprint.

Just Blaze didn't go as far as Diddy did by expressing his outrage via Twitter for the world to see (although Diddy recently rebuffed that notion), but a new video has recently surfaced in which Just says that while he and Jay Electronica are "still cool, there's things that we gotta talk about."



Just doesn't go into great detail, but he does say he understands how Diddy feels, which lets on that Just himself probably does feel some sense of betrayal from Jay Electronica.

It almost seems as though Jay Electronica and Just Blaze had an unwritten, binding understanding or agreement that Jay would be signed through Just's company and then sign with a major label. But it looks as though Jay has eliminated the middle man and gone straight to the cash cow, Shawn Carter.

Electronica can't be blamed for his decision, considering most of what Jay-Z touches turns to platinum or better. But lately Jay's track record hasn't been so stellar, what with J Cole floundering in the underground and Willow Smith making the most noise of all the artists on the Roc Nation roster.

On the flip side, Just Blaze is notorious for his problems with securing record deals for his artists, and Jay Electronica probably wants to get his career moving and not be relegated to being an Internet artist.

And aside from Biggie, Diddy's track record with signing rappers to Bad Boy have been nothing short of disappointing, disastrous, and in some cases demented.

At least with Jay-Z, Electronica will ideally have ready access to the best of everything, including an upper tier production team that is not solely made up of Just Blaze, as well as a guarantee of worldwide distribution.

As with Boozer and LeBron, it seems that Jay Electronica went not only to the highest bidder, but also to the team that gave him the best chance of winning immediately, and he can't be faulted for that.