While we witness today's pivotal evolution of the music industry as we have known it, hip-hop tzigane Jay Electronica embodies the sort of dissident, experimental nuance covertly producing the most talked-about leaders of tomorrow. The New Orleans native's bohemian travels led him to Detroit more than 10 years ago, and what ensued was a virtually unknown, yet close-knit relationship with some of the Motor City's most innovative musical contemporaries. Electronica is among the select roster of artists to have worked with Mr. Porter and the late J Dilla during some of their most formative years, sharing the same type of elusive discography as Dilla — a seemingly bottomless vault of timeless gems never officially released.

Pinning down one of music's most enigmatic figures for an interview, as you can imagine, is quite the task — but we were able to capture at least most of his attention for a session while he was home in the Big Easy. It made for a unique discussion on Jay's path, his methodologies and the inherent connections between New Orleans and Detroit.

It starts here: Electronica's single, "Exhibit C," rapidly rose to the top of several respected music charts, including iTunes' Hip-Hop Top 10 since its official release in December 2009. He also produced collaborations the previous year with the likes of Nas, Mos Def, Talib Kweli and Just Blaze. Now, Electronica becomes the subject of music diggers' thirst for the story behind the beat — mainly, where in the world did this guy come from?

Fitting his often obscure lyrics, atypical production style and unconventional way of getting his music out to the world is Jay's link to Detroit. And Motown plays an important role in the body of work of hip-hop's man of the hour. After meeting Detroiter Johnnie Evans while living briefly in Atlanta and working with rapper Kool Ace in 1998, Electronica headed to Detroit. Why? Because of Evans' suggestion that he should come and record with him in the home studio he was building for J Dilla with Mike "Chav" Chavarria, who would later become Jay's exclusive mixing engineer.

Atlanta is where he also met the other late Detroit hip-hop legend, Proof, whom Jay remembers as one of the most militant, committed and often competitive MCs he has ever known. Detroit would continue to leave many profound impressions on him, especially his first visit to this city he knew very little about. On seeing Detroit for the first time, Jay remembers thinking, "Oh, this looks like home a little bit — I had never been somewhere that looked so much like New Orleans. It was like this lawless society, with everyone just trying to make it by whatever means — a black market. But then I started meeting the people, and I felt like it was even more like home, because the people are so genuine. And it doesn't matter if they're black, white or otherwise, you can always tell a Detroiter."

Chatting a bit about the death and rebirth of his native New Orleans and the forthcoming documentary about his childhood neighborhood, the soon to be demolished Magnolia Projects, Jay states that one of his wishes would be to "get in a time machine and live in Detroit from, like, 1800 to, like, 1935. There are just so many things that jumped off in Detroit. And what is that all about? Detroit is fascinating."

From his first visit in 1998 on through the past decade, Jay spent several months at a time in Detroit working on music and recording, staying mainly off Hartwell and Chalfonte on the city's west side, occasionally running on the east side with producer Mr. Porter and rapper Guilty Simpson (with whom there are at least two tracks yet to be released publically). Though he traveled often and maintained home bases in other places such as Philadelphia, New York and Baltimore during this time, Jay was always laying down his final product in Detroit with Chav.

Speaking on how the first singles came to be, Mike Chav lends a piece to the puzzle that is Jay Electronica with the tale of "Abracadabra," or the full-length project that we have yet to hear — a three-part audio project reflective of a magic trick. Part one of this is Jay's notorious first "known" EP and title track, "Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge)," made famous by the folks at ?uestlove's OkayPlayer website with no previous promotion other than Jay's blank MySpace page simply bearing the tune.

Disappearing would prove to be Electronica's next trick, at least insofar as the public was concerned. In fact, he says that he was never really that social while he lived in Detroit, missing out on most of the St. Andrew's and Lush heydays of Detroit hip-hop. You would have had to catch him in the streets or in the studio, which is how he knows that "Detroit has its street laws and cheddar boys just like any other urban ghetto, but they never let that overshadow its hip-hop product — a lot like Philly, too. Denaun and Dilla are the best producers Detroit, and most of hip-hop, has to offer. In fact, Denaun is the one who put [engineer] Chav on the path he's on now. Chav is the best engineer I know; he's like a scientist with it. Chav mixes everything I do, and now he's doing all of Erykah [Badu]'s stuff, too. In fact, the only track Chav hasn't mastered of mine is 'Exhibit C,' and that's because he was busy working with Erykah at the time, so Just [Blaze] rushed to get it mixed."

When asked to compare Jay to any of the other heavy-hitting rappers or producers he's worked with, Chav states that he really can't think of any — that Jay truly has a style all his own. Both Jay and Chav cite their shared interest in a vast and diverse array of musical genres and media influences as a large part of their bond, and it seems that this rooted penchant for sincerity and originality in music, for which both Detroit and New Orleans are known, has birthed yet another entry for the history books. | RDW

Jay Electronica w/ Slum Village, Guilty Simpson, One Be Lo, Ro Spit, 5 ELA & DJ Houseshoes • 6/26, 8 p.m. • St. Andrew's Hall • 431 E. Congress, Detroit livenation.com • $15