You probably have this labeled as either The Throne or Kanye West & Jay Z, it isn't exactly clarified so I'll go with this artist name. So this is the latest effort by the two big name Hip-Hop artists known as Jay Z and Kanye West. I wasn't a massive fan of 2010's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, i thought it lacked skill and the tracks were stretched. It had unnecessary segments to certain tracks such as Runaway, Blame Game and Dark Fantasy..
'Watch The Throne' is riddled with producers and writers, with lyrics not worthy even for Jay Z's past standards. The samples used have been selected well, but it wasn't the right thing to do, taking a fantastic Otis Redding song 'Try A Little Tenderness' (One of my favorite songs).. just destroying it with disastrous rhymes which are predictable 'I made Jesus Walk, I'm never going to hell', 'I invented swag'.. The lyrics serve little purpose in relation to the soulful sample, appalling.
'Niggas In Paris' is possibly the wost track on the album, it sounds like the instrumental has been pulled from a Soulja Boy song, the song shift works well, but again, just has nothing special about it at all, weak synths. The use of Auto tune just contradicts Jay Z's whole stance against Auto tune on Blueprint 3, it's just disappointing hearing these phonies, flaunting rhymes about cash and cars, as if they were amateurs just starting out releasing a mix tape.
I cant exactly find a track that I enjoy, it all sounds cheap and cheesy. 'Who Gon Stop Me' is painfully awful in every way possible, terrible lyrics and terrible use of synths. I think this album can be enjoyed by many people, fans of both Jay and Kanye should manage to form some positive opinions.
Watch The Throne is more about the persona, rather than the music. Expensive unexplained samples just don't cut it for me, if you're going to use that sort of sample, you should at least have a reason or use it well, 99 Problems comes to mind at this point, these just don't do that for me.
~Eddie
4.5
