Average Rating: 8.5/10
Overall Rating: 9.4/10
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1. No Church in the Wild Ft. Frank Ocean (10/10)
2. Lift Off Ft. Beyoncé (7.5/10)
3. Niggas in Paris (10/10)
4. Otis Ft. Otis Redding (10/10)
5. Gotta Have It (8/10)
6. New Day (10/10)
7. That’s My Bitch (10/10)
8. Who’s Gon Stop Me (10/10)
9. Murder To Excellence (10/10)
10. Welcome To the Jungle (7/10)
11. Made In America Ft. Frank Ocean (10/10)
12. Why I Love You Ft. Mr. Hudson (9.5/10)
13. Illest Motherfucker Alive (7.5/10)
14. H.A.M (8/10)
15. Primetime (5.5/10)
16. The Joy Ft. Curtis Mayfeild (3/10)
Jay-Z and Kanye West had a long history together, Jay-Z was Kanye’s mentor, and Kanye was Jay-Z’s prodige. They met in 2001. Kanye produced some tracks for Jay-Z’s classic “The Blueprint” album, and in 2004, Jay-Z was the executive producer for Kanye’s first album “The College Dropout”. Ever since they had an Eminem and Dr. Dre type mentor and prodige relationship, and much like Eminem and Dr. Dre, they never made a whole album together, until now, Jay-Z and Kanye West formed a due called The Throne, thus, the collaboration album, “Watch The Throne” was born.
Watch The Throne has experienced many delays, and honestly at some point, It started feeling like Dr. Dre’s Detox. I thought that the album would never come out, but look at it, it’s on out now, it was highly anticipated, and it looked like it will be a strong contender for being one of the best albums of the year, and possibly one of the best albums of modern day hip-hop. So let’s see how it will do as far as what everyone is expecting form it. Is it going to be the earthquake what we were waiting for since it was announced? Or will it end up being a disappointment, like most highly anticipated albums these days? Well, it already reached 1 million pre orders on I-Tunes, and probably will top the charts, so let’s see if it’s worth all this hype and anticipation.
Watch The Throne as a whole reminds me a bit of Kanye West’s debut The College Dropout production wise. Not in the sense that the album sounds like The College Dropout, more in the sense that like the College Dropout, Watch The Throne’s production sounded really well taken care of and top notch, and as for the album’s job lyrically as a whole, it seemed like something new for Yeezy and Jigga, why? Because unlike any of Kanye West’s or Jay-Z’s previous albums, they try many different flows and styles, but what’s a different flow if the album isn’t good?
As I just mentioned earlier, there where so many different moods and flows in this album. There where emotionally driven or lyrically honest tracks. Some tracks where mostly Jay-Z and Kanye trading verses, and some tracks that were just simply punch line after punch line. So given all this diversity, the album should sound fresh, should have constant new sounds, and somewhat different sounds compared to Kanye or Jay-Z’s previous solo projects.
The album featured so many different styles, but the style that shines out the most was the emotional/ lyrically honest style. The album’s best tracks in the album had this particular style, mostly four songs shined out with that style. Starting with “No Church in the Wild”, which was mostly about religious and social corruption, and what better way to say it then with a great beat, an excellent played out yet angry flow, and a really strong hook by Odd Future’s Frank Ocean. Another one of the best honest and emotional tracks was “Made in America” which also had Frank Ocean on the hook, but unlike “No Church in the Wild” it had a very mellow flow, and the concept was very different, this song was about the stress and struggles used to get to Kanye’s and Jay-Z’s point of success, and it was a much better song than “No Church in The Wild”, even though “No Church in the Wild” was an amazing song.
Another honest and emotional track which did not feature Frank Ocean was “Why I Love You”, which was an alternative rock inspired track about trust, and Jay-Z and Kanye’s feelings on breaking that chain of trust, and honestly thanks to its great flow, and really strong flow, the song takes its place as one of the best here on Watch The Throne.“Murder To Excellence” was another honest and emotional track, it mainly talked about gang wars, black people fighting each other, and how that should stop, especially because they are murdering their own race. But one song that really caught my ear was “New Day” which was another really great track, it was Kanye and Jay-Z both imagining that they had kids, and as a result the song was the most honest, and it felt like it was the most emotionally driven track on the whole album, making it feel somewhat special compared to the rest of the album.
Kanye West and Jay-Z also shined in the songs where they trade verses. Particularly in “Otis” where Kanye and Jay-Z both just keep trading verses nonstop without even stopping for a hook, and as a result, the song really deserves something huge. Another track where Kanye and Jay-Z kept trading verses was “Welcome to the Jungle”, only it wasn’t very consistent, and really wasn’t nearly as good as Otis, and a third track where they trade verses was “Murder To Excellence”, it’s production really shined out clearly, and Jay-Z’s and Kanye’s speed at trading there verses was really strong and flowed really well with the beat, thus, showing there really strong chemistry on the mic.
As I mentioned, there were some tracks here where Kanye and Jay-Z just rap punch line after punch line. One of the most notable tracks was “That’s My Bitch”, which felt like 90s hip-hop due to the production, but due to the many punch lines and many metaphors used here, the song felt closer to the smarter, better and more clever side of modern day hip-hop, which really made it shine out as a five star track. “Niggas in Paris” was another great punch line track, it’s production really shined, and it’s punch lines and lyrics sliced a lot of the songs out there like how ninjas slice people in half in cartoons, , and “Who Gon Stop Me” was another great punch line track, the song had a really strong dubstep inspired beat, and some very strong and memorable punch lines, but the cool thing about the song, and most of the other punch line songs here was that the whole song was just punch line after punch line, then a hook, then back to the punch lines, like most of the punch line tracks here, and really that style worked out very well for both of them, and possibly may be mastered by Kanye and Jay-Z.
There was one particular track in the album that caught my ear. Not because of Its quality, but more because of its more diverse and experimental feeling. The song was “Lift Off” which featured Beyoncé. It mainly cough my ear because Kanye sang most of the song without using Autotune, and he sounded great, but I think the song could have been better, why? Because when having the hook sung really beautify by Beyoncé, and Kanye having a great voice singing in this song, Jay-Z’s verse was way too short, and Kanye kinda annoyed me at his second verse where he only kept repeating “now you know me, now you know me”, I mean, the song was good, but the biggest letdown on the album, because it really had the potential to be the best track out there.
Watch The Throne honestly had a ridiculously high chance of being a masterpiece. Most of the songs were amazing. When the album was in its best mood, and when it was on, it was really on. It really pushed how good music can be to its limit, but what weakened the album were the weaker tracks, which were good most of the time, but compared to the level of the best tracks on the album, they could have been a lot better. But other than those weaker tracks, the album was mostly an incredible collaboration, it was diverse, it used many styles that can only be used as an advantage for collaborations, it took advantage of many of its opportunities, and it overall hit almost all of its buttons,. Overall, it’s not the best album of the year, it’s not the best collaboration of the year, but it is a close second to the best collaboration, still though, I think due to hearing most of the album, I think it could have easily been the best album of not just the year, but of this new generation, but it kinda blew it’s chance due to the weaker tracks.
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