Who Had The Most Disappointing Year in Hip-Hop? Posted by Lucas G. on 12/16/13 | Filed under Opinion, Debates, Jay Electronica

We spent all of last week on the award tour, debating everything we loved (and hated) for the 2013 RefinedHype Awards and you are all probably blue in the face fingers from arguing with us (and the other rap nerds) about why Yeezus was left off or where Drake stands, so you are probably sick of the award format (I know we are), but keep voting! Rather than give you another award, I decided it would be better to turn this into an opinion article as we have been unbiased and even-keeled throughout the selection process and my rap nerdery opinions are overflowing. We always talk about the good stuff from the year but aside from Fails of the Year, rarely, does the bad stuff get talked about. So I am about to piss in 2013's cereal and play the debbie downer; let's talk about who had the worst 2013.

As always, we gotta go over the criteria. Honestly, though, I think the criteria for this one are pretty open. Maybe the failiest emcee of '13 had an album that under performed, maybe the album performed moderately but didn't reach expectations, or maybe they didn't release a project the entire year. Either way, I think the main aspect is perception. This emcee must have had some kind of buzz, but in one way or another failed to back it up resulting in us viewing  him or her in a much different light. This game is all about keeping a good image and releasing content and if you don't do both (yes they are related) you will struggle to succeed no matter how popular your are. If you don't please the mob, it might end up looking something like this. There are a few candidates who come to mind, Mac Miller (no buzz after a big album), maybe Kanye sans the music (became more about a headline and less about music), but to me one stands out, and that emcee is the phantom of the hip-hopera Jay Electronica.

This pains me so much because there was a good portion of the year where I wanted to defend him-- in one of my first articles on RefinedHype was praising him in every way I could--but now, even I am fed up with his lack of work, communication, and refusal to do anything even remotely normal. I get being different is like his thing but there reaches a point where it stops being part of his aura and becomes annoying and that point was reached this year. Every so often, someone would come out and say "oh this album is great, it'll change the game" and it ranges anywhere from being turned in to Jay already to being in the final recording stage, but still nothing from Jay and nothing from the album. At the beginning of the year you could hear murmurs of people complaining, but for the most part, I think people were excited that 2013 might finally bring us a Jay Elec album, but we waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited, and nothing, not a single mention from Jay Elec or Z about the album. It's almost like they think we are stupid and if they don't talk about it, we will forget it was supposed to come out like 2 years ago when Jay had all the buzz in the world. Now that that buzz is gone, it might drastically effect the album. Seriously, that might be the biggest fail for Jay, not capitalizing on the buzz. Now that it is all gone, the album will definitely have an uphill battle and, to impress all of those he spurned, it will truly have to be something special. he might be a genius, but even Jay Electronica can overcome a bad reputation.

Even when focusing on the body of work he produced (as opposed to focusing on the one he has yet to) Jay still underwhelmed. Jay and I released the same number of solo projects, zero, and he also had 5 relatively forgettable guest spots. Obviously "Control" was big but nobody was talking about it because of his verse. He also appeared on Mac Miller's "Suplexes Inside of Complexes and Duplexes" but a forgettable verse on a forgettable album is nothing to write home again. To be fair, the two songs he did with The Bullits are dope (especially "They Die By Dawn"), but it isn't anything to make me forget about the 2 and half year cock tease of an album. If he had been super active on the guest tip or done something mindbowing, he might have been forgiving, but Jay's refusal to even try to adhere to the standards of the industry (and his fans) is frustrating and totally killed whatever buzz he had going into the year.

I am not ready to say Act II is Detox status yet, but if Electronica's 2014 looks anything like this year,  Act II is in a whole heap of trouble. It's such a shame to see a rapper who has all the tools necessary to succeed in a massive, almost uncontrollable freefall. If Jay doesn't get his act together soon, before long, we will be making "Act II isn't Dropping" shirts and while it might be good for Nathan's wallet, it would bad...very bad for hip-hop to see another career (especially one this promising) spin out.