Songwriter: Jay Electronica The New Royales

Question
How does one go from chosen to posin'
Trapped in a box for years, like Han Solo frozen
Trapped in a wack idea designed by De Beers
To keep your mental eyelids closed and your eyeballs bulgin'
Fear, it could kill a man
Turn a real man to a realer man
Or package you
As a Bathing Ape wearin' gorilla stan
This message is brought to you in part from a Michael Jackson Thriller fan
I had the glove plus the matching jack, the zippers, hehe
It's cool to imitate, just grow into your own
Don't let the green grass across the picket fence
Turn you into Mr. Smith without a purpose or a home
Underneath he is a Jedi on the surface, he's a Clone
Smilin' for his peers but
At night time he cried til he dried up all his tear ducts
And he cool with that as long as he got a haircut and his gear up
Without change we over
From individuals to posers

Jay Electronica

Timothy Elpadaro Thedford (born September 19, 1976), better known by his stage name Jay Electronica, is an American rapper and record producer. He is from New Orleans, Louisiana and currently based in London, United Kingdom.

Electronica first gained significant attention after the release of the musical composition Act Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge), which was made available on a MySpace page in 2007 and has been called a “timeless classic” by Vice Magazine. It is fifteen continuous minutes of music, without drums, built from Jon Brion’s soundtrack to the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In late 2009 he released two singles, both produced by Just Blaze, “Exhibit A” and “Exhibit C”, the latter of which won a Sucker Free Summit Award for Instant Classic. In November 2010, it was announced Jay Electronica had signed to hip hop mogul Jay Z’s Roc Nation record label.

More than a decade after his last project, What the Fuck is a Jay Electronica, and almost exactly eight years to the DAY after he reportedly finished and turned in his album, Jay Electronica finally released his debut studio album A Written Testimony on March 13, 2020. The album features Jay-Z on eight of its ten tracks, leading some to label it a collab album between the two Jays. The-Dream also makes three appearances, and even Travis Scott makes a surprising appearance on “The Blinding.”