Hip hop has historically been an arena of society known for fostering competition. The past two decades have seen rap “beefs”—from Biggie and 2Pac to Jay-Z and Nas to 50 Cent and, well, almost everybody—grow and fester, fueled by shots fired within songs and inflammatory actions of one form or another outside of them.
In that light, the decision by Jay-Z and Kanye West, arguably the two most recognizable living figures in rap, to team up to release the collaborative album Watch the Thone is somewhat curious. In an industry governed by rivalry and a society that hasn’t been too kind to the “dream team” concept of late, the fact that Jay and Ye went the Miami Heat route should strike listeners and cultural critics as odd—and exceedingly telling.
While the hip hop super-duo that now refers to itself as The Throne has worked together numerous times before this album, the direct musical foundation of the concept of Watch the Throne is, fittingly, embedded in the official remix to “Power,” the lead single off Kanye’s critically acclaimed 2010 album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. On the remix, which features Jay-Z and Swizz Beats, Hov groans over a beat that dominated the radio in the summer of 2010, “They tryna Axl Rose you/ Welcome to the jungle/ to be continued.” The Throne’s “Power” trip did, in fact, continue: Jay’s opening line on “Welcome to the Jungle,” heralded by many critics as one of the album’s standout tracks, sees him declare himself as the “Black Axl Rose.” It goes without saying that the song features—and was also produced by—Swizz Beats.
Lyrical conspiracy theories aside, the musical body of work these two rap superstars offer on Watch the Throne and, more importantly, the way in which they offer it is a testament to just how much Power they have. Their respective public statures—Jay as a rags-to-riches black billionaire and self-proclaimed “new Sinatra” and Kanye as the owner of a twisted form of raw talent mixed with a bizarre and fragile psyche that create a celebrity status near that of the late Michael Jackson—are what make this album so culturally monumental.
From cover to cover—literally, The Throne commissioned Italian fashion designer Ricardo Tisci to design the album’s metallic gold cover—Watch the Throne is an exercise in sheer power and an assertion of the duo’s iconic status. Between the casual namedrops (Jay-Z is known to pay homage to the likes of President Obama and Oprah, while Kanye prefers to call out porn stars), the boasts of obscene wealth (“Maybachs on ‘bachs on ‘bachs on ‘bachs on ‘bachs?”), and the allegations of secret society references hidden throughout the lyrics (Googling “Jay-Z Kanye West Illuminati” will turn up millions of results), the manner in which Watch the Throne is presented, or perhaps the mere fact that such a project even exists, is enough to captivate the general public. Proof of this captivation is clear: the album topped the Billboard charts in its first week and went gold in its second despite the fact that only one single, “Otis,” was released.
It was the power of the hype surrounding Watch the Throne, alongside the power of The Throne themselves, that made the album’s August 8th release the event that it was. Kanye, five solo albums under his belt and perhaps at the peak of his career coming off the universally acclaimed Fantasy, and Jay, a hip hop mainstay for the past 15 years, didn’t even need the music to be particularly good for Watch the Throne to be mesmerizing. The pair essentially willed the album to be a success based on their collective icon alone.
Not that the music isn’t strong. The album is packed with heavy beats courtesy of a murderer’s row of producers armed with an inventive string of soulful samples but also boasts an air of lyrical development for each artist, as hip hop’s common themes—fame, wealth, struggle and, of course, women and life’s pleasures—are explored in a way that is strikingly nuanced and unique. For those who think this album sounds “different,” it does, but those differences are purposeful: the two artists have set hip hop’s curve, and soon everyone’s album will adopt the progressive rap style present throughout Watch the Throne.
But the album isn’t about the music itself, because the music thrives on the artists. That is, the collective force of Jay and Kanye is larger than their musical production here. The album opens with “No Church in the Wild,” which is anchored by up-and-coming R&B crooner Frank Ocean on the hook and needs a “Monster”-style music video immediately, where The Throne paint a portrait of their twisted celebrity (a la Fantasy) over a gripping beat produced by 88-Keys. The oddly fun “Ni**as in Paris,” which weaves dialogue from the Will Ferrell comedy “Blades of Glory” into its narrative, goes beyond traditional rapper braggadocio into a rare territory where we’re not just listening to rappers brag, we’re listening to these rappers brag—it might as well be titled “The Throne in Paris.”
“Murder to Excellence” is a standout, with Yeezy anchoring a segment of the song on black on black crime and Jay looking for black millionaires as the beat switches up, but this song, too, could more accurately be called “Kanye West to Jay-Z”; the social commentary from Ye and the “black tie” boasts from Hov are so uniquely them that it transcends hip hop. Even the vivid outline of Jay-Z’s troubled past on “Welcome to the Jungle” and the extremely personal “New Day,” an acclaimed track where the duo addresses their unborn sons with surprising candor, captivate us not for their musical quality as much as for their presentation of these two icons. (For comparison’s sake, Eminem’s touching 2005 song to his daughter “Mockingbird” is good, but it lacks the momentous feeling of “New Day”—and Eminem has been in hip hop’s upper echelon for almost a decade and a half.)
Even when the lyrical content suggests otherwise, Watch the Throne isn’t about the black struggle in America or the thrills and dangers of being rich and famous: it’s about Jay-Z and Kanye West, larger-than-life made men who can do whatever they wish musically and still tower above the rap world. When the sold out Watch the Throne tour begins in late October, each concert will create an unusual frenzy that can only make one think we’re watching this generation’s bolder, brasher, and blacker version of the Beatles.
Above all, perhaps Kanye was right—no one man should have all that power. It seems only fitting, then, that these two giants share the Throne.