"Watch the Throne" by Jay-Z and Kanye West

Watch the Throne Album - Watching the throne may be harmful to your eyes. The long-awaited, wildly hyped joint effort by Jay-Z and Kanye West has arrived at last, and it gives off a gilded glare – both from the actual cover (the deluxe CD edition, designed by Givenchy Creative Director Riccardo Tisci, comes wrapped in embossed gold Mylar) and from Jay and Kanye's lyrics: an onslaught of Rollses and Maybachs and Gulfstream jets, five-star hotels and Audemars Piguet watches. As Kanye puts it in the surging "Otis," this is "luxury rap."



A bar boasting acres of hors d'oeuvres (we sampled chicken and pineapple satay, lobster rolls, and sweet potato fritters with caramel-pecan glaze), and string-heavy 70s soul set the mood for the main event. Or, more cynically, helped lull a bunch of hacks into hitting Twitter as soon as their mobiles were returned after the playback, praising the album to the skies. (Search #watchthethrone and scroll down for the full, OK-guys-that'll-do details.)







Jay is in particularly fine form: He's as sharp as he has been in a decade, and he shows flashes of the emotional depth that is West's calling card. In "New Day," Jay lays bare the pain of his fatherless childhood; in "Murder to Excellence" (with a turbulent beat by Swizz Beatz and S1), he places his success in a wider sociopolitical frame: "Only spot a few blacks the higher I go/What's up to Will/Shout-out to O/That ain't enough/We gon' need a million more/Kick in the door."



Track-by-track review:



1. No Church in the Wild (ft Frank Ocean)



(prod. Kanye West and 88-Keys)



Over stalking bass, Kanye murmurs "What's a king without a god?" before Jay-Z fires off a strong verse. West is sly and clipped, describing someone as "striped like a zebra/ I call that jungle fever." Frank Ocean sings the hook through a vocoder.



2. Lift Off (ft Beyoncé)



(prod. Kanye West, Mike Dean, Jeff Bhasker, Q-Tip and Don Jazzy)



As galaxies form overhead, Beyoncé sings "Take you to the moon/ Take you to the stars." Now that's selling it. The track is bombastic – the synths recall The Final Countdown by Europe, full of triumphalist opulence.



3. Niggas in Paris



(prod. Hit-Boy, Kanye West, Mike Dean and Anthony Kilhoffer)



This percolating track could have been produced by Wiley, with sick sub-bass and a snare that sounds like static. Both rappers are in excellent form, with Jay-Z repeating "That shit cray" – we are left to fill in the "-zy". Kanye begins in half-time and speeds up. Among the lines that jump out: "I'm suffering from realness" and "Don't let me get in my zone." A standout track.



4. Otis (ft Otis Redding)



(prod. Kanye West)



You know this one already – more beats tied to the bass, as is largely the case on the three tracks preceding it.



5. Gotta Have It



(prod. the Neptunes and Kanye West)



Kanye: "LOLOLOL, America/ Try and assassinate my character."



6. New Day



(prod. RZA, Kanye West, Mike Dean and Ken Lewis)



Now here's a song topic: how Jay and 'Ye plan to raise their as-yet-hypothetical boys. Kayne: "I won't let my son have an ego/ Be nice to everyone wherever we go." And later, in a nod to his notorious comment about George W Bush, he talks about raising his son "Republican, so they know he likes white people".



7. Prime Time



(prod. Q-Tip, Kanye West and Jeff Bhasker)



Throwback time! The scratched-in "ba-bada-you" from Public Enemy's Brothers Gonna Work It Out, the Incredible Bongo Band's Apache conga break, and a chorus that is "very late-80s". Of course it is – they sampled it from La Roux.



8. Welcome to the Jungle



(prod. Swizz Beatz, Mike Dean and Ken Lewis)



Squabbly, mnemonic guitar forms the backdrop here. Great twist on an already worn theme: Jay-Z's "Rest in peace to the leader of the Jackson 5."



9. Who Gon Stop Me



(prod. Sham "Sak Pase" Joseph, Kanye West and Mike Dean)



"I can't stop-op-op-op-op-op": Romping, ravey synths, a big stomp without much give. West: "This is something like a holocaust/ Millions of our people lost."



10. Murder to Excellence



(prod. Swizz Beatz and Symbolyc One)



The obvious centerpiece of the album, its grandest statement: "It's all love," Kanye raps, "I love us" – meaning black America. "Pay-per-view murder/ Black-on-black murder," goes one oft-repeated line, with "black excellence" later replacing it. Congas courtesy of William DeVaughn's Be Thankful for What You've Got.



11. Sweet Baby Jesus (ft Frank Ocean)



(prod. Sham "Sak Pase" Joseph and Mike Dean)



Instead of looking forward to new family, this one looks back at old: Jay-Z raps about his "grandma" (which he rhymes with "star-spangled banner"), Kanye talks about meeting his producer No ID in Chicago and "getting high on my own supply" – of beats, naturally.



12. Why I Love You (ft Mr. Hudson)



(prod. Mike Dean and Kanye West)



Mr Hudson's hook sounds like a pitch-shifted old Ratt record, shrieking hair-metal bombast. The track and verses are pretty good, though, with Jay-Z snarling, "Got a pistol under my pit bull." The song, and album, ends abruptly, which is satisfying.



[via - guardian.co.uk]