ALBUM REVIEW: Kanye West + Jay-Z - Watch The Throne

 What up hip-hop heads! A few months ago during a concert while promoting his Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy album, Kanye made the big announcement that him and Jay would collaborate on a full-length project. At that moment, the anticipation was already felt. The pressure was already on. The hype was already built. Hip-hop's two biggest stars on one album: can they deliver a solid project? Personally, I feel like it's impossible for anyone to live up to that amount of hype – with that said, I want to say that I was not disappointed in the least bit by this project. Let's get to it:

Watch the Throne is an interesting piece of work. Upon the first listen – the first thing that sticks out is the production quality. Sonically, this project is very big and cinematic. One word comes to mind: dynamic. Many highs and lows and mediums. “No Church In The Wild” kicks things off and I must say that this is probably one of my favorite intros from Jay (or Ye) since his Dynasty Intro. Yeah, I said it! The lines:

Human beings in a mob
What's a mob to a king?
What's a king to a god?
What's a god to a non-believer?
Who don't believe in anything?

is enough to chew on, by itself. I find it funny that Jay proceeds to jump-start the album with a verse that has enough Free Mason and Illuminati imagery to fuel the fire of any conspiracy theorist. But his content is on point with the lines –

“I’m wonderin’ if a thug’s prayers reach
Is Pious pious cause God loves pious?
Socrates asks, “Whose bias do y’all seek?”
All for Plato...”

“Lift Off” is an peculiar record itself. While I do enjoy it and think it's appropriately placed on the tracklist in terms of concept and subject matter, I cannot help but notice that this song is 95% sung, aside from Jay's brief 8 bars in the middle. But this song is mostly Beyonce. This tells me that Ye and Jay's focus couldn't have been on the technical side of rapping – they wanted to create a feeling or an emotion for the moment. While I think they hit the mark in that respect, real hip-hop heads will cry foul for the lack of rap and lyricism. Ironically, Jay already see's this coming as he states in his verse:

“Rappers hear Watch the Throne
They gon be pissed off
Earth is boring to em
Sh*t is making my dick soft”

The album flows pretty well, from that point. It's not until I get to the RZA-constructed “New Day” when I realize that Jay and Ye ain't playin. This is easily one of my favorite songs from not only this album, but from both of their catalogs. The concept is simple in that they're talking to their unborn children, but the depths they find within their verses are phenomenal. With Kanye – this is the rapper we fell in love with and miss. The introspective, self critical, observant and “so self conscious” backpacker that rhymed on “Never Let Me Down” and “All Falls Down”. With Jay – this is the side of him we don't see enough of: the vulnerable, honest and more human side. We saw a glimpse of that on Kingdom Come, but nothing since then. On this album, people will make their decisions on “who out-rhymed who”, but on this particular song – they both came with it.

I think what makes this a strong project is the production quality – not only the beats themselves but the arrangement. There are not many hip-hop songs which contain true bridges, in the traditional sense: the transitional part that takes the song to the next level, creating more dynamics. With hip-hop, it's difficult to accomplish this without melody. However, Jay and Ye make this happen through constant beat changes and vocal samples on several songs. They even include extended outros, where they change the beat completely. Something I haven't heard anyone experiment with in a while. Sonically, you're in for a journey. The most surprising joint is the Swizz Beatz laced, “Murder to Excellence”. On the surface, this could've easily been a cheesy stop-the-violence song, but instead it turned out to be one of the strongest message-songs we've ever heard from the two of them, and a lot of that is credited to the beat, which lends itself to that. It's great to hear a song start out as cry for peace on black on black crime and police brutality by spitting out facts (Jay references Danroy Henry the Pace University football star who was gunned down by police), and end in a hopeful tone – stating where we can go as a people if we choose the latter.

Other standouts are “Made In America”, “That's My Bitch” and the dubstep inspired track, “Who Gon' Stop Me”. It is clear that these two made the decision to take rap to another level.

While there is a lot to praise about the project, it isn't perfect by any stretch. Content wise, there is A LOT of stuntin' on this album. A lot of ballin. A lot of flossin. Lotta money talk. Sometimes it's good, but most of the time it gets redundant, especially because we are very familiar with Kanye and Jay's work up to this point. One or two songs aren't bad especially because that's what we're used to hearing from Jay, but c'mon son - “Niggas In Paris”, “Gotta Have It”, “Otis”, “Who Gon' Stop Me” are all the same song. I enjoyed them all individually, but as a project I would've have preferred two or three or those get replaced with a storytelling track or two, just for the sake of variety. It gets old after a while.

Jay and Ye are both at a point in their careers where people are wondering how many tricks do they have left up their sleeve, so every song counts. It's funny because conceptually, Watch the Throne sounds like Kanye was in creative control and Jay added his touch to it. I think on this project you get a little bit of both personalities we've grown accustomed to: Jay the slick talking hustler who will forever be the king of money-talk. Ye forever speaks on how fly he is with a hint of social consciousness. Personally, I think it would've have been nice to hear a project with more substance to it, not because I'm a hip-hop head, but because 1.) we know they have it in them to do it and 2.) although we've seen Kanye go there early on in his career, we can't say the same about Jay. And Kanye is a much better technical rapper now than he was on College Dropout, so who knows what clever lines and poetry he'd be able to create now.

Overall I think Watch the Throne is an enjoyable album. There are no straight up wack tracks to be found. Some songs are better than others, but It's tough to listen to a project from these two without comparing it to what we've heard from them before or what we'd like to hear from them in the future. And realistically, there is no artist on the face of this planet that could possibly live up the amount of anticipation that these two had, so if you're expecting perfection: you are sorely mistaken. What you're going to get instead is an album reflective of a moment in time. Some of these moments you can relate to, others are far fetched. But as Jay once said, this is “just what he was feelin at the time, right or wrong...” Hate it or love it.

Grade: B – (7.8/10)

Standout tracks: “No Church In The Wild”, “New Day”, “That's My Bitch”, “Murder to Excellence”, “Made In America”