InterView w ElecTroniCa

Scheme: You have many clips on your tracks that refer to Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney. What is your opinion on the Presidential campaigns that are occurring and politics in general?
Jay Electronica: All you can really hope for is at the end the day the people you vote for are looking out for the best interest of the people. As far as politics in general I think we need to look politically how we approach things. I understand structure and understand how certain things must be in place for policies to stay in place but I think at the same time all across the world we’re missing out on the human experience and missing out on everyday life. We’re totally disconnected from that and in my mind I think with the governing of a people government is supposed to help us sustain a peaceful environment to live in and that we as human beings have the basic necessities of life, and at the very basic level experiencing life. I think that politics and government fail in those areas and I think that that’s one of the major flaws of modern government.

Scheme: What’s your opinion on the term Nigger and the re-appropriation of the word?
Jay Electronica: My grandmother still uses the word to this day. My mom might hear me use the word outside and I might get a whoopin for that, I understand that past and the history of the word and the significance of it but at the same time it’s a word. If you want to bury the word, that’s fine but that’s not addressing the problem because when the cab-driver sees me holding my hand up and but chooses to drive past me the principle is still there and I think we have to worry about those things.

Scheme: Finally on the song Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, you talk about infiltrating the machine i.e. MTV, BET etc… I’ve talked to a lot of artists who have said as long as there heard whether it’s the preacher’s choir or not, they just want to be heard. You are the last artist to challenge that notion and what to be heard by all.
Jay Electronica: I’m not a member of conscious society, I’m not a member of ignorant society and I’m not a member of Christian society or religious society I’m a member of the human family and if I’m doing something that I want to express to the human family and if TRL and MTV and VH-1 and BET and these are the avenues and to me I want to reach as many people as I can and experience the human family on a larger scale.