Kanye West retrospective, part 6: Watch the Throne

In which a dream team is born.

For his next project after the brilliant My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kanye chose to team up with hip-hop legend Jay-Z for a collaborative album. The results were a commercially successful, positively-received collaboration, including the smash hits Otis and Niggas in Paris. The album even has its own website! However, the materialist themes present proved controversial, as the album was released at the height of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Yeah, I'm reaching a bit for things to fill the introduction with. It's Kanye and Jay-Z rapping their lips off. No introduction is needed. On Watch the Throne, the dream team of Ye and Hov are at the top of their games. They throw out excellent rhyme after excellent rhyme, to an extent that more than makes up for the relative thematic shallowness. Kanye provides Jay-Z with the motivation he needs to rap at his best, while Jay-Z helps tether Kanye to earth. The result is an epic testament to their egos, and it's glorious.

The lyrical talents of the two starring rappers are accompanied by some truly stellar beats. As per usual, Kanye uses his great taste in music to find fantastic samples, ranging from the the smooth sounds of Otis Redding's voice on "Otis" to the screaching bass of Flux Pavilion on "Who Gon Stop Me", and even the elements of the film "Blades of Glory" included in "Niggas in Paris". The result is a collection of great beats, and combined with the boastful rapping it's perfect for blasting at maximum volume in your car.

The question, however, is whether Watch the Throne is truly a masterpiece like Kanye and Jay-Z's greatest work. Personally, I'm not sure I'd call it such. Sure, it's an incredibly entertaining listen, but in the end the artistic vision isn't there. I'd put it on par with Graduation: Both albums with high-quality and a large scale, but slightly lesser ambition than the artists' greatest works. In the end, though, that still means they're great albums. Not that we'd expect any less from Kanye, right? Right? Well... we'll see next time, when we look at Cruel Summer.