When “Both Of Us” began blowing up beyond the underground House music scene, it became evident to many that Jayda G was a talent we shouldn’t be sleeping on. She soon established herself as this luminously outward dance DJ and producer, shifting trends to stay authentic with her artistic direction. It’s there in her 2019 release Significant Changes, and even more so with Guy. With Guy, we hear her pivoting inwards, getting more personal with the writing and vocal performances, taking a direction that’s not as focused on sound first, and instead more introspective and illuminating. Jayda G lost her father, William Guy, at 10, and before his passing, he recorded videos recounting his life for his family; using those audio samples, Jayda G delivers significant range as she finally processes it all as an adult. She went through the archives, his journals, and videos, creating a concept album where the focus is never lost. Speaking from the perspective of her father, and her journey discovering these stories, Jayda G delivers a stunning album where it only stumbles in the pacing briefly.

As Jayda G would say in an interview with Billboard.com, “I had the idea for the album for a long time,” Guy says. But until the pandemic hit, grounding a DJ used to a relentless gigging schedule, she “really didn’t have the time, energy and space to tackle what that would look like emotionally.” As a past listener, there is a noticeable change as the beats are more reflective of the lyrical content, enveloping itself as a provocation for its central themes to pop and allow the listener to gravitate and understand what Jayda G wants to relay. It’s why she doesn’t try and bring subtlety to the equation and opens the album with the audio recording of her father announcing his terminal cancer and his ongoing set of videos to recount his life for his family and future generations. The album isn’t consistently drowning in sadness, as Jayda G finds ways to turn the stories that reflect her father’s life(“It Was Beautiful” and “Sapphires Of Gold,”) enlisting in the Vietnam War (“Blue Lights”), his ups and downs in business (“Meant To Be,”) and his personal fortitude to succeed, in more positive directions. 

Now, with streaming, we get added pluses to enhance the listener experience, and one of those comes from the descriptions of the artists who get interviews from that service. For Apple Music, it’s interviews where artists dive into each song individually and describe how it came about and more. Jayda G got that opportunity, so in addition to the intro, when it comes to the first song, “Blue Lights,” we hear Jayda looking through what her father emotionally went through when enlisting in the army at 18 and witnessing the 1968 Riots in Washington D.C. after the assignation of Martin Luther King Jr. It shifts definitions of the colors through this perspective. Red and Blue are the colors of the police lights – so think of it as the good cop, bad cop, where even with the good, there isn’t total transparency, thus this notion she sings, “Ooh-ooh, gonna dance like I’m on fire/And the blue lights ain’t gonna save ya/And I give it all for three days of runnin’ to you, to you,” expressing a desire to be free in a fair world, despite a longshot. The dance-pop flavors are darker and moody, which helps establish the emotional complexities of the writing, a constant that makes Guy fantastic.

As the album progresses, you hear visceral depth in the songwriting. Though Apple Music gets you a bonus of the interview, it doesn’t elevate it further since it has equivocal merit transcending by itself with its control of the sound, the audio samples, and writing. The writing brings some subtlety, though it’s wholly reflective of directiveness, where that bonus of the interview is just a bonus because the consistency of the music radiates, like when the house notes grip you resoundingly on what’s getting told, like fighting back when getting bullied, never hiding your scars, and showing growth as a human, all over these atmospheric percussion laced beat on “Scars.” The lessons and focus on Guy continue with emotionally potent songs that personify who her dad is and how he maneuvered through it all, like the equally as beautiful “Lonely Back In O.” In the song, Jayda G goes through this moment where the miscommunication in her father’s first relationship ended with sadness and loneliness; he’d get shipped to Thailand after enlisting, as Jayda G told Apple Music, and the miscommunication with his then-wife furthering his loss in perspective, only to return with a disappointing surprise.

On the other side, the production is wonderfully great, though it starts to slightly peter due to a shift in its pacing after the second interlude, where some notes feel more monotonous than others. However, being surrounded by a balance of bass and jazzy and soulful undertones allows for a smooth progression from start to finish. But when it gets to the second interlude, it begins to slow down before triumphantly ending on a powerful one-two punch with “Sapphires Of Gold” and “15 Foot.” The former speaks to one’s will against the temptation to do what’s best for others and not yourself, like when faced with a decision to help the family prevail over just yourself – think angel and devil on the shoulders. The latter sees Jayda digging and finding her mother’s journals as she recounts how she felt with the loss, also telling Apple Music, “While I was reading my dad’s journals, it switched in one part to my mum’s writing, where she began recounting her experience of caring for my dad as he was passing…grief started to feel like 15-foot waves rather than a constant overflow. I wanted to end on this track because it shows how grief never goes away, so you learn to live with it.” It leaves you with a lot to reflect on, especially as its impact is fantastic.

Guy is magnificent. It’s leveled with a sense of triumph as Jayda G constructs with her co-producers; this extraordinary and entrenching journey into what she compartmentalized while watching and reading her father’s diary entries. It left me looping it constantly without being dissuaded from continuing through to the end. The stuff that didn’t work for me is so minimal that I can’t really take a lot of markings from what I feel, and I feel this is one of the three best albums of the year so far! With a sonic construct built around the lyrics, you get more focused on what Jayda G wants to say instead of how she wants you to groove, and despite having some equilibrium between the two, I found myself contemplating more than dancing.