"The source material on Jay Stay Paid runs the gamut from 90s Ummah-era loops to beats Dilla was putting together from his hospital bed, but it stylistically falls in a general area that fits best between the dense but crisp boom-bap of his early-aughts material (i.e., Welcome 2 Detroit and Slum Village's Fantastic, Vol. 2) and the grimier, more frenetic beat-tape rawness of his Jaylib/Donuts L.A. phase. That latter aesthetic tends to permeate the surface here, filtered through a loose radio-show concept that interjects some actual disk jockey shoutouts, comedic asides, and brief interjections from the man himself. That bugged-out hyperkineticism keeps things moving, but it doesn't reduce the beats to ADD afterthoughts: Early scene-setting moments like the stuttering elasticity of the organ-riff loop in "King", the glowering Minimoog g-funk retrofuturism of "I Told Y'all", and the Morse-code keyboard of "Lazer Gunne Funke" don't run too long, but they sink in deeply."